A poster girl for torture in Hong Kong

[unhappycamper]

http://atimes.com/atimes/China/CHIN-01-280114.html



A poster girl for torture in Hong Kong
By Kent Ewing
Jan 28, '14

HONG KONG - "Welcome to Asia's world city." That was the greeting Hong Kong's tourism board extended to the more than 50 million foreign visitors who came to the city last year to wine, dine, shop and enjoy the bright lights and sky-scraping architecture of one of the most vibrant, pulsating places on the planet.

For the 312,000 foreign domestic workers employed in Hong Kong, however, a more accurate salutation might be: "Welcome to Asia's third-world city." For them, life is defined by cramped quarters, low wages and, far too often, exploitation and abuse.

And now they have a grotesque poster girl for their plight: 23-year-old Erwiana Sulistyaningsih, an Indonesian maid now languishing in a hospital in her native country after allegedly suffering repeated incidents of torture at the hands of her Hong Kong employer. The Hong Kong government also faces pressure from Indonesia over the maid's alleged treatment.

The horrid details of her case - laid out by Prosecutor Catherine Ko Po-chui in a Hong Kong courtroom last week - have shocked and embarrassed this city of 7.1 million people and also prompted thousands of foreign domestic workers to take to the streets with demands for better protection from the Hong Kong government and the employment agencies that recruit and place them.