Crime | Woman charged over unlawful hiring of domestic helper

A 50-year-old local resident is being charged by the judiciary authorities over the unlawful hiring of a domestic helper from Vietnam, the Public Security Police Force (PSP) spokesperson informed yesterday during the regular joint press conference of the police forces.
According to the PSP, the case was discovered after the domestic helper was caught during an anti-prostitution operation at the Iao Hon area on December 2. The woman was caught by the PSP together with another six women from the mainland and Vietnam, all on tourist visas.
At the time of detention, this woman caught the attention of the police since she was the only one from the group in the possession of a non-resident worker permit (blue card) that traced back to a job as a domestic helper.
Questioned on the topic, the woman said she had engaged in sex work as a way to get “easy money,” but she failed to provide any details or information about the family or the place where she was supposedly employed.
Later, the police took her to the surrounding area of the working address noted in her blue card but she also failed to identify the house of the family she supposedly worked for.
At the listed address, a man answered the door and told the PSP officers that he had no idea who the woman was, adding that his family does not have any domestic helper.
Later, the PSP contacted the woman whose contact details were attached to the blue card as the person who had hired her. The casino worker then admitted to the police that she had hired the woman back in August this year through an employment agency.
She also said that she had agreed to not request any work from her or pay any salary, allowing her to stay in Macau and search for jobs.
The local woman added that the reason she did this was that she had learned through friends that if you have children over 12 years old, the immigration department will reject the request for domestic helpers, and since her son was about to be 12, she decided to take the “quota” as a preventive measure in case she needed to hire a helper later.
The PSP tried also to ascertain the responsibility of the employment agency but they claimed they were unaware of any agreement between the woman and the helper.
The case has been transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office to charge the local woman with making false declarations and document forgery in relation to her application for hiring a non-resident worker.