I. Domestic Workers in Hong Kong with Children

A. Constable: ethnography of 100 foreign domestic helpers (FDHs), mostly from Philippines and Indonesia, and about 25 of their current or former male partners; 65 interviews
B. How do workers use legal and political rights, including UN Convention against Torture, labor law, and family law

1. Gain time to process claims
2. Recognizance papers permit staying, but forbid working
3. Problems of return: fathers of children, marital status, economic difficulties of raising a child

C. Hong Kong's population

1. 95% Chinese
2. Non-Chinese can be permanent residents (right of abode)

a. Babies born to Chinese nationals or Hong Kong permanent residents
b. At least 7 years of continuous legal residence (doesn't apply to FDHs)
c. One parent is permanent resident --> child has right of abode, but other parent may not
d. Neither parent has permanent resident status --> child does not have right of abode

3. Fear of influx of poor people, especially from mainland

D. Temporary worker system in Hong Kong

1. Southeast Asians seen as easily controlled because ethnically different
2. Temporary work helps middle class households: Hong Kong women can work, aging population with lower fertility

E. 2012: over 300,000, more than half from Indonesia, less than half from Philippines
F. Only a small number have children and seek to stay in Hong Kong

1. Most return home
2. Some are illegally terminated
3. Two-week rule
4. Those who try to stay illuminate legal system, rights, and problems of treating people as only workers

G. Four case studies

1. Putri (married to a local resident)
2. Rose and Barney (single mother and child)
3. Ratna (domestic worker and child)
4. Domingo family (fighting for right of abode)

H. "Tactics" reflect weakened position

1. Right of abode: partner's status --> legal dependent and right of abode if 7 years of continuous residency
2. Employment law: wrongful termination, register pregnancies and gain access to reproductive services
3. UN conventions on refugees and against torture --> asylum claims and International Social Services support (rent, modest necessities, time)

I. Role of networks
J. Migration is transformative and makes it difficult to return "home"
K. Success stories illustrate heteronormative privilege

 

II. Discussion: Domestic work, slavery, and trafficking

A. Issues raised by Alex Tizon's "My Family's Slave" (The Atlantic, June 2017)

1. Personal and family history: emotion, work, cruelty, guilt, violence, love, documentation status, gender, agency, cultural differences, political economy
2. Philippines: history, concepts of enslavement and domestic service; cultural relativism?
3. Global dynamics of migration and mobility
4. Representation: Who speaks for whom? Whose stories can be told?

B. Responses to Tizon

1. Rafael, "Lola's Resistant Dignity: Reading 'My Family's Slave' in the context of Philippine history" (online article)
2. McElya, "The Faithful Slave: How Alex Tizon's essay echoes a trope with deep roots in American history" (online article)
3. Jeong, "Mother, Wife, Slave: Lola and the universality of women's exploitation" (online article)

C. Questions

1. What are the key elements of each response to Tizon's article?
2. What you think of Tizon's article in light of that response?
3. How does this set of articles allow us to consider the relationship between contemporary forms of domestic work, migration, slavery, and trafficking?

D. Slavery definition, from the Abolition project: "Slavery refers to a condition in which individuals are owned by others, who control where they live and at what they work" (http://abolition.e2bn.org/slavery_40.html).
E. Trafficking definition, from the UN: "Article 3, paragraph (a) of the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons defines Trafficking in Persons as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs" (https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/what-is-human-trafficking.html).