By Sringatin & MICROLAB

MICROLAB Collective’s latest book, What We Carry, Under the Same Sky, features essays, poems, photographs and drawings by Indonesian migrant workers, reflecting on their life journeys from their home villages in Indonesia to Hong Kong.

This collaborative effort involved not only migrant workers but also academics who helped sharpen their writing, as well as artists who guided the process and helped design the book’s layout.

Their stories represent the journeys of hundreds of thousands of domestic workers in Hong Kong and beyond.

The shared collective emotion begins in Chapter One. Despite living in resource-rich Indonesia, the authors describe facing economic difficulties due to the country’s broken system. “It is true, our country is rich, yet we do not live in prosperity,” they write.

Each chapter touches upon the invisible burdens faced by migrant workers, such as long-distance motherhood and structural isolation. It opens with an essay, followed by photos taken by migrant workers. The pictures are their personal reflections of what they have “carried,” metaphorically and literally, from Indonesia to Hong Kong, during work and on their days off.

The photos are accompanied by captions that describe the burdens of their lives, worries, and hopes as migrant workers.

A poignant example is in Chapter Two. A migrant worker uses a photo of suitcases in front of airport check-in counters to express loneliness, longing and determination. “Leaving behind family, children, parents – we store our feelings of longing, pain, discrimination in a suitcase of sincerity,” she wrote.

The stories shared by 15 women in the book can easily be experienced by many other migrant workers. This could be seen during the book launch on International Women’s Day on March 8.

The authors drew much laughter when they told the audience about experiencing miscommunications and misunderstandings when they first came to Hong Kong. For example, they mistook the Cantonese word “tang” for “chair,” whereas the employer meant “wait” or “lamp.” The writers turned to humour to ease the daily struggles and sadness they may experience.

Reading What We Carry, Under the Same Sky is like watching a TV drama. It begins with reflections on their home country, then continues with the challenges they face overseas, personal moments with friends on their days off, and ends with their dreams and aspirations.

The book also captures the bitter reality of a cycle of exploitation. Even though Hong Kong and Indonesian laws are said to protect migrant workers, they fail to change the fundamental well-being and status of migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong.

The laws and regulations often contrast with the realities faced by migrant domestic workers. While smartphone technology makes it easier for migrant workers to communicate and send money home, their living conditions remain the same.

The mandatory live-in policy forces migrant domestic workers to live with their employers.  It is not uncommon for them to sleep in the kitchen, in the bathroom, or in a coffin-sized compartment. There is no legal limit to their working hours, and many work for over 12 hours a day and are on call 24/7.

The rules often become a trap. The two-week immigration rule for migrant workers forces them to leave Hong Kong within 14 days after their contract is terminated. As a result, many workers are afraid to report abuse for fear of being immediately deported and losing their livelihood.

There is a statutory monthly minimum wage for migrant domestic workers, but in reality, their hourly wage is far below that of other Hong Kong workers and has not kept pace with the high cost of living and inflation.

Indonesia also prohibits employment agencies from charging migrant workers placement fees, while Hong Kong only allows agencies to deduct at most 10 per cent from workers’ first-month salaries. But in practice, some workers have to spend their entire wages for four to five months to pay agencies HK$ 20,000 to HK$25,000 in placement fees.

The language used by the governments often contrasts with reality.

The Hong Kong government still calls migrant workers “foreign domestic helpers” – a term that minimises their contribution as “help” rather than work. “Helper” erases the importance of the labour of migrant domestic workers and their significant contribution to Hong Kong’s economy and the households that employ them.

Meanwhile, the Indonesian government praises migrant domestic workers as “remittance heroes.” However, for many workers, it covers up the reality of being treated as commodities.

What We Carry, Under the Same Sky reveals that behind those beautiful terms and high-rise buildings in Hong Kong, these migrant women carry burdens, sweat and tears. Their stories are repeated and remain the same from year to year, decade to decade.

On International Domestic Workers Day, which falls on June 16, we encourage people and governments in Hong Kong and Indonesia to appreciate and celebrate the deep commitment of migrant domestic workers who leave their own families to take care of other families.

While this is a mutually beneficial relationship, migrant workers deserve deep appreciation, respect, and understanding of their rights, sacrifices, and struggles.

Without migrant domestic workers, employers will find it impossible to have both a career and take care of their children and elderly parents.

The responsibility of looking after others’ children, parents and home has been borne by invisible workers, often called “maids,” “servants,” or “helpers.” Yet they are more. They are workers who deserve respect, as well as fair and just treatment.

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Sringatin is an Indonesian migrant domestic worker and labour activist in Hong Kong. She is the secretary of the Indonesian Migrant Workers Union (IMWU) and spokesperson for the Asian Migrants Coordinating Body (AMCB). In 2014, she was named by the South China Morning Post as one of the Top 10 Local Heroes.

MICROLAB is a shared space to cultivate collaboration between grassroots migrants, academics, artists and service providers hosted in the Department of English and Communication at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. It is collaboratively run by the Network of Indonesian Migrant Workers (JBMI) leaders Sringatin and Jepy, Professor Lydia Catedral, Francis Catedral, Yvonne Zhu and Yuyan Liang.

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