Few families and companies in Macau can say that they do not rely on the help of non-resident workers, in one way or another. Seeking to change their lives and that of their families, migrant workers from mainland China and Southeast Asia come to the two Special Administrative Regions (SARs) of China to search for employment, most commonly as domestic helpers.
Thirty-two-year-old Putri from Indonesia is no exception. The decision to leave her hometown in Indonesia and search abroad for a way to support her family was for her almost obvious; as obvious as the decision taken years before by her mother who, at the time, headed to Brunei with the same goals.
To shed light on the sometimes “dark world” of migrant workers, Putri agreed to share her story with the Times.
She insisted that her story is not special or particularly complex – it is a common one, lived for most of those who, like her, left their country to work in Macau or Hong Kong.
Under the promise to keep most of her details private, Putri explained how her journey started at a “training center” in Indonesia, – which serves to both select and train candidates, and is a requirement from the employment agencies that place these workers in the SARs.
First step – the making of a lie
When Putri joined the training center in a city near her hometown, her destination was already pre-established; she would be trained to perform domestic work for Chinese families in Hong Kong. As such, she was trained in basic Cantonese language skills as well as cooking and other duties.
But Putri was also threatened: behave well in Hong Kong or you will be sent to Macau.
She was told: “You need to behave well, don’t get terminated by your employers and don’t commit any crimes. Because if you get [your working contract] terminated or you commit any offense, you will have to be sent to Macau, which is in China.”
Putri recalled that Macau, which was allegedly in China (as opposed to Hong Kong), was a rough place known for all sorts of “terrible things,” and the descriptions of crimes which took place there were very graphic and included mutilation, corporal punishments, torture, and sexual abuse.
Only upon setting foot in Macau did Putri realize this description was not true.
“I think I know where those stories come from. I saw them in those posters that some people sometimes exhibit near San Ma Lo [Senado Square]. But they [the employment agencies] use that to threaten us and not only us, also our families back home,” she said. “They tell them also that if we need to come back home [before the contract ends] the families need to pay a lot of money to repay our debt with the agency.”
Putri said she realized that she had been lied to only when she needed to wait for her working visa renewal in Hong Kong. At the time, she was brought, together with a large group of other workers, to Macau so she could exit Hong Kong while waiting for her documents to be processed.
From HK to faraway Macau
Putri recalled how the trip from Hong Kong to Macau lasted 14 hours, making it seem as though the two SARs were geographically distant when in reality they lie just 64 kilometers apart.
“I remember that we were all put into a bus and we crossed the border into Shenzhen – and I had no idea at the time where that was,” said Putri. “Then we took several roads until our arrival in Macau.”
“If I remember well, I think we only stopped once and nobody could leave the bus for the whole time,” added Putri, noting that the employment agency staff accompanying the workers on the trip also warned them that they should not tell anyone at the immigration checkpoint that they were coming to Macau to wait for their Hong Kong visa.
“If they asked, we needed to say that we are coming for a visit only and they also distributed an amount in cash to each of us, […] HKD3,000 to some and around HKD5,000 to others. On the other side of the border, another person was waiting for us who would ask for the money to be returned immediately, as well as our passports.”
“I remember when we crossed some cities in China seeing some people seated on the grass, which reminded me of home, and it seemed very contradictory with all the information we had received about what was supposed to be a very creepy place.”
The Golden Cage
During their stay in Macau, the group lived in an apartment arranged by the employment agency and was told they should stay indoors the whole time.
Upon her arrival, Putri recalls passing through the center of the city heading to the apartment where she would be staying for a few weeks.
“It was amazing! A wow thing! It was evening already when we finally arrived and passing through the center with all the glittery lights of the casinos was something that I was not expecting at all. Everything suddenly looked so shiny and beautiful. This couldn’t be the place we had been warned so much about,” she said.
Although the outside world looked very attractive, Putri had agreed to submit to voluntary imprisonment.
“We were left with only a copy of our passports, so even if we want to go out, we were afraid to get caught by the police. We were warned constantly not to leave the apartment until someone from the agency came to pick us up one-by- one, as the working visas in Hong Kong were getting ready,” she said.
The agency supplied food that was expected to last for three daily meals: “Mostly it was rice and with some vegetables and sometimes a little bit of fish or meat,” she recalled. “But this was often not enough for many people; neither was it free. We had to pay for it.”
Questioned as to how much it would cost, she said: “We had no idea! We only knew that we would have to pay – for the trip and the apartment we needed to pay in advance before leaving Hong Kong, and for the food we were told that it would be deducted from our salary afterward, but we were not informed how much that would cost.”
She added, “this happens mostly to the ‘first-timers’ [in this region] and most of these people know nothing and are uneducated. They just follow. They do not question anything. They have no choice because if they want to go back to Indonesia, it means the family at home need to pay all the costs.”
“Of course, people then learn and those who are already working for two or three years understand that these are all scams, and they can avoid all that by doing things on their own, but this happens to all the first-timers.”
She noted that the house was an open space where groups of 15 to 20 people would “sleep on the floor with just a sponge mat. We lived packed like sardines in a can. In the morning, after everybody would wake, we would stack the beds and just stay in the house. Nobody went anywhere, as we knew we were illegal here and we were afraid to get caught by the police.”
Putri said that the voluntary detention usually lasts no more than three weeks, but in some situations it can go on for longer.
“If by chance, someone’s [visitor] visa is expiring, one of the staff from the agency will take them to China to do a ‘U-turn’ and return to the boarding house.”
Rolling the dice for food
Surviving in such conditions does not come easily. Those with a “survival instinct” would find ways to overcome their difficulties and help their peers.
“Do you know what I did before to survive because I didn’t have money? I went to the Lisboa [casino] to gamble. This was not my first time in this situation so I had some information already, and I had 100 patacas in my pocket,” said Putri.
“I went to the Lisboa as it was the only place where you can gamble using patacas and I would just bet on the dice games. But I am not a greedy gambler. If I won 20 patacas I would withdraw immediately and with those 20 patacas I could ‘save’ a lot of people at that time.”
“I would then go to the market around closing time, usually around 7 or 7:30 p.m. when they would put the vegetables on sale, already packed in a basket with a price tag of 5 patacas or 10 patacas. I would use the money earned in the casino to buy those discounted items, some chicken wings and sometimes also fish.”
“With this money, like 20 or 30 patacas, I could help to feed over 20 people [adding to the food provided by the agency],” explained Putri. “I would do this every day. If, on a day, I would not manage to make any money, I would just withdraw and go home. I couldn’t afford to lose it, none of us could.”
Although Putri went through this experience a couple of years ago, she said she was aware, mostly through friends and posts on social media groups used for Indonesian workers, that the system remains in force today and without much change.
During her interview with the Times, Putri browsed a few posts on a Facebook group for domestic helpers showing the money they were getting after the removal of the “salary share” that was taken by the employment agency. In most cases, workers would get just MOP900 per month from their base salary of MOP3,000, while in other cases, there were people that for periods of six consecutive months would have their entire wage diverted to the agency.
Putri said that “basically everyone knows” about this problem. She said the exploitation is becoming much rarer in Hong Kong, where it is technically not possible to perform such schemes anymore.
“In Hong Kong now, no. Only in Macau,” she answered when asked whether the exploitative schemes are still in practice. “In Hong Kong now a domestic helper gets somewhere between HKD4,700 and 5,000 and it’s a mandatory rule, it’s fixed; there is no way an employer can give less than that to the worker.”
A common tale with many more victims
The Times contacted the Indonesia Migrant Workers’ Union Macau (IMWU) to enquire as to whether the Association is aware of such claims.
In a short reply to the Times, the president of IMWU, Yosa Wariyanti, said that the Association is well aware of the situation.
“We actually have many cases [of this kind] in Macau,” she said, adding that “the situation in Macau is far worse than in Hong Kong.”
According to the IMWU, the Association often receives enquiries from Indonesian workers calling for information or help in matters mostly related to the fact that employment agencies often collect a very significant part of their salary. The Association also confirmed the existence of cases where workers are required to concede their entire salary for several consecutive months.
Deadlock at the Legislative Assembly
At the request of the Times, Putri’s story comes as a bill that aims to effect changes to the Employment Agencies Law in Macau is in an apparent “deadlock” at the Legislative Assembly (AL).
Passed upon its first reading 18 months ago, the Law of Employment Agency Activity has seemingly since reached an impasse. Such a fact was admitted by the president of the Committee, lawmaker Vong Hin Fai, at the last press briefing on the topic held in July.
Questioned by the Times as to whether there was a final decision on the topic of the payment of the fees to the Employment Agencies and who should be responsible for them, Vong said at the time, “In principle […] the employer should be the one to settle those expenses but the law says that the [agents] can also receive fees from the employees.”
The committee also said that this law is intimately related to another that is also under discussion and that concerns changes to the procedural regime for the hiring of the non-resident workers, which had already determined that people on tourist visas cannot apply for work permits while staying in the region. Instead they must wait for the application procedures by the employer to be completed while outside of Macau.
The law effectively replicates the legislation currently in force in Hong Kong that gives way to the situation faced by Putri and many others.
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