On July 24, the family of a 28-year-old Filipino maid named Lorain Asuncion were told by her Hong Kong employment agency that she'd fallen to her death from a 7th story apartment in Shenzhen. Asuncion had been working in the city illegally under the orders of her employers, a couple in Hong Kong.
Her death may be a sign of a growing trend of human trafficking, where Filipino domestic helpers are brought to the mainland to work, sometimes full-time, in violation of both their contracts and the law.
In the eyes of Asuncion's relatives, the Hong Kong employment agency also left much to be explained regarding the details of her death.
“We were told that she jumped. But we think the death of my sister is very suspicious. We want to know what happened and have justice," Jenevieve Javier told SCMP. She and her aunt Susan Escorial are currently in Hong Kong looking for answers.
According to them, since Asuncion's former employers hired her last October, she'd been taken to the mainland to work around four times. The 28-year-old strongly disliked those trips, her aunt told reporters: "She was afraid because of the language and when she was in [mainland] China she did not have access to social networks, so she could not talk to us."
Asuncion's last trip was probably even more stressful than usual. Escorial claimed that her niece had been working for relatives of her employers: "Last time, she was even more afraid because she would not be with her real employer."
Despite the pressure on Asuncion – besides working in the mainland, her sister said she'd fought with her employers after being refused a vacation in the Philippines – her relatives believe she wasn't depressed at the time of her death.
"She had many friends and relatives here [in Hong Kong]," Escorial said.
Asuncion's death has been referred to police as a "suspected human trafficking case," according to a spokeswoman for the Hong Kong Immigration Department. As of August 13, her body was still being held at a Shenzhen morgue.
Chinese officials are considering legislation that would allow Filipino maids to work legally in five cities that include Beijing, Shanghai and Xiamen. It'd also allow the maids to be paid as much as RMB13,000 a month.
If passed, it could help stop a worrying 'trend' in human trafficking: groups that support domestic workers and migrants in Hong Kong have reported regular complaints from people pressured to work illegally in the mainland, either for set periods or full-time. Holly Allen, director of HELP for Domestic Workers, told SCMP that the complaints have been increasing.
Last year, the Philippine consulate-general in Hong Kong estimated that around 200,000 Filipinos were working illegally as domestic helpers in the mainland.
[Images via hk01.com]
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