Book Description

This book is about the lives of Indonesian women employed in Hong Kong as Foreign Domestic Helpers. It tells of their lives as labour activists, leaders, religious leaders, lovers of men and women, undocumented migrants when they overstay their visas, single mothers and as wives in marriages that take place in Hong Kong. The reader will learn the inside stories of what gave them strength and the barriers they encountered to personal empowerment. I introduce the role of migrant-NGOs that assist them in Hong Kong and examine the nature of power exercised by the State and other non-State actors such as migrant-NGOs, employers and civil society that characterise their experiences in Hong Kong. Based on fifteen years of ethnographic research in Hong Kong, there are eleven chapters in this book. Chapter One begins with the effect of the Asian Financial Crisis that witnessed the systematic and exponential increase of Indonesian domestic workers in Hong Kong from 1,000 in 1990 to 40,000 in 2000 and 150,000 by 2011. Chapter Two provides the background of their employment in Hong Kong and their social and legal exclusions as Foreign Domestic Workers that gives context to the ensuing chapters. Chapter Three is about the rise of Indonesian women's labour activism, their participation and understanding of their own roles as activists and grassroots leaders. Chapter Four is about the rise of consciousness amongst Indonesian women migrant workers about their role as Muslims and their emergence as religious leaders for their compatriots in migration. Chapter Five presents their perspectives of power, leadership and authority as secular grassroots leaders in the Indonesian activist community in Hong Kong. Chapter Six presents Indonesian women's experiences of disempowerment in Indonesia from their discussions of a range factors including poverty, broken families, adultery, arranged marriages, son-preferences, favouritism among siblings, domestic violence in marriage, etc. and how activism in Hong Kong helped them recover. Chapter Seven is about the centrality of women's shelters and networks in Hong Kong and the nature of migrant-NGOs' role, leadership and power vis a vis grassroots migrant activists and leaders, and their supporters. Chapter Eight showcases the romantic relationships of Indonesian women migrants in Hong Kong with both local and foreign men, the problem of sexual violence, unwanted pregnancies, babies born in Hong Kong and brought home to Indonesia, those put up for adoption and Indonesian women's marriages and settlement in Hong Kong. Chapter Nine examines the stories of Indonesian women involved in same-sex relationships in Hong Kong with other Indonesian women, what these relationships mean to them and the relationship between labour migration and Indonesian women's transitory homosexual liaisons in Hong Kong. Chapter Ten is about how illegalities are created in labour migration by the nature of a range of actors including their employers, recruitment and employment agencies, by the State and its representatives and by Indonesian women who overstay their visas. It presents their experiences and perspectives as overstayers and highlights the dangers they encounter as undocumented migrants in Hong Kong. Chapter Eleven highlights further areas of research and concludes with theoretical concerns about how Indonesian women's agencies as individuals are often misread and the problems of misunderstanding agencies as generic, similar across different social groups (including women) and between individuals and institutionalised and collectivised agencies in academic work. The Author Amy Sim is a Cultural Anthropologist (PhD, HKU). She taught Anthropology, Gender, Globalisation and Migration Studies at the University of Hong Kong. Her research and publications focus on women’s transnational labour migration in East and Southeast Asia, women’s empowerment, leadership, gender issues and sexuality, and the development of NGOs for migrant workers in Hong Kong. She is an advocate of migrant women domestic workers in East and Southeast Asia for two decades. Prior to academia, she worked with communities in developing countries on issues of Sustainable Development from eco-tourism in Indonesia to income generation for women’s empowerment projects in Cambodia, Fiji, Indonesia, Laos, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. She was involved in international research, development and advocacy projects for the Governments of Canada and the United Kingdom and international NGOs.