Blinded by the hope of high earnings in one of the world’s richest cities, four Kenyan women who headed to Hong Kong, China for a monthly wage of 4,630 Hong Kong dollars (Ksh63,242) are in despair.
The four are now living in squalor in a foreign land in the wake of xenophobic attacks by the Chinese against African descendants.
They are currently sharing a cubicle with five other women from Indonesia and Philipines, putting a total on nine people sharing one cubicle courtesy of a Christian-based organization in Hong Kong, Daily Nation reports.
All of them have filed cases against their former employers which are yet to be determined.
For the Kenyan women though, theirs is the usual story of being duped by an unscrupulous agent who demanded Ksh150,000 for their travel to Hong Kong and job placement as house-helps.
The law in Hong Kong, nonetheless, states that a foreigner should only pay 10 percent of their first month’s pay after job placement meaning the four Kenyans should have just paid KSh6,324 and not KSh150,000.
Esther Wanjiku (38) who was an M-Pesa agent at Thika Road Mall left Kenya for Hong Kong in August 2019 but was ejected by her employer in October. She has since been living in the cubicle.
“I had to wash utensils and cook for them using gloves. I was never supposed to touch their food with my bare hands. And I was never supposed to eat their food. I had a different fridge for my food,” she said adding that she was overworked and her leave days denied.
She traces her untold suffering to her agent only identified as “Ivy” operating under “Talent — Kenya Company Limited” whose offices are located at Hollywood Plaza in Hong Kong.
Ivy who reportedly lives in Hong Kong worked with two female lawyers stationed in Nairobi who collected money from her recruits before exporting them to China.
However, the two Nairobi-based lawyers in their defence say they have terminated their dealings with Ivy after learning she is “not straight”.
“When I found out that she doesn’t want to comply with [househelp agency] rules, I stopped dealing with her immediately,” said Joan Nthenya who ended her deal with the agent in June 2019.
Euphrasia Ziriba, the other lawyer who had been working with ivy said she ended her deal with Ivy in February.
Grace Wariu, a 26-year-old Kenyan lady who returned to the country on March 24, said life in Hong Kong under the hands of a rogue agent was unbearable.
She was subjected to malnutrition – only allowed to eat boiled rice and macaroni – slept on top of a cupboard and was denied the use of her phone.
A Hong Kong-based Kenyan lawyer working at the University of Hong Kong David Bishop said the situation is bad as “there are dozens more that we have been unable to reach, or who have already left Hong Kong.”
He said he has helped many Kenyan victims who found themselves in the con game.
He advised that: “If Kenyans are offered a job in Hong Kong, then they should know that Hong Kong agencies are not allowed to charge them large job placement fees. The minimum wage and other laws for Hong Kong are posted pretty clearly, so do your research and make sure that the things the agency is telling you are true.”
“The current minimum wage for a foreign domestic worker is HK$4,630, so if (she) had that salary, her job placement fee cannot be more than HK$463,” he said.
The Christian Action Organization in Hong Kong is offering these women counselling, education and other services.
