Press Statement: Our Situation is not a subject for derision

資料日期: 
2009/03/30

Our Situation is not a subject for derision Mr. Tsao’s “A War at Home” is a mockery of and assault on domestic workers’ rights and dignity

For the mockery and ridicule we are subjected to and for the license given to treat domestic workers harshly, we demand no less than a public apology from Mr. Tsao.

As Filipino domestic workers, we are outraged by the article entitled “The War At Home” by columnist Mr. Chip Tsao for the HK Magazine Online website on March 27 ( http://hk-magazine.com/feature/war-home).

Mr. Tsao’s column did not even give intelligent light on the Spratly issue, the topic he was delving on. Instead, it became a cheap shot, distasteful and demeaning of domestic workers who are already under extreme working and living conditions in HK.

In his failed attempt to be witty, Mr. Tsao regrettably trivialized the very serious domestic workers’ situation in Hong Kong society. Such an article to appear publicly is very dangerous for it projects that it can be socially-permissible to treat domestic workers as no more than slaves ready to be lectured, ordered around, easily threatened with termination, and made to jump at every whim of employers.

Mr. Tsao wrote: ‘As a nation of servants, you don’t flex your muscles at your master, from whom you earn most of your bread and butter.’ Furthermore, he wrote that he ‘summoned Louisa, my domestic assistant who holds a degree in international politics from the University of Manila, hung a map on the wall, and gave her a harsh lecture.’

With an even more insulting wit, he added that if war breaks out between Philippines and China, he has to fire his domestic worker ‘because I would not risk the crime of treason for sponsoring an enemy of the state by paying her to wash my toilet and clean my windows 16 hours a day.’

Behind such lines that Mr. Tsao may likely but wrongly justify as satire, there lies the precarious reinforcement of the master-slave treatment of domestic workers. Mr. Tsao makes it appear that it is alright to denigrate us and take potshots at us.

The situation of domestic helpers is not a subject for derision. We labor under difficult working conditions and policies both of the Philippines and the Hong Kong government expose us to abusive situations and discrimination. This vulnerability is even life-threatening as shown by the recent fatal shooting of a Nepali resident, Dil Bahadur Limbu.

For Mr. Tsao to make fun – and even sound proud – of how Filipino domestic workers are treated here is insulting and tramples on our dignity as workers and as human beings. It is, in effect, a display of race and class discrimination.

Political satire as a journalistic device is used to challenge or even make fun of authorities and the status quo. Mr. Tsao did not do so in his latest column. Instead, he further beats up the already low and downtrodden.

We ask, is Mr. Tsao so disdainful of Filipino domestics (as also shown in a previous column in the same website on October 3, 2008 entitled Politically Incorrect with Chip Tsao - The Vintage Year) that he has to demean us again by coming up with another offensive article? Isn’t this an abuse of his journalistic privileges?

We hope that Mr. Tsao will be civilized and humble enough to admit that his column was way out of line. We demand no less that than a public apology from Mr. Tsao and the HK Magazine Online, its publisher and editor.

Such contemptuous regard for migrant workers is unconscionable.#

Press Statement: Our Situation is not a subject for derision, Mr. Tsao's "A War at Home" is a mockery of and assault on domestic workers' rights and dignity
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