Govt Rejects Call For A Lockdown Just For Helpers

The labour secretary on Wednesday rejected what he said could be a discriminatory suggestion by DAB lawmaker Elizabeth Quat to impose a "weekend lockdown" on foreign domestic helpers (FDH) to help fight the coronavirus in the territory.

During a Legislative Council meeting, Quat asked the government not to adopt a "laid back attitude" and consider her idea to ban helpers from gathering in public places on their days off, saying quite a number of them have continued to do so despite repeated appeals for them not to.

According to government figures, foreign domestic helpers have accounted for around five percent of the total number of Covid-19 cases recorded in the city.

"The government should have a lockdown order during the weekend for this particular group, because if you ask the employers to talk to FDH to tell them to stay at home on Sundays, FDH still go out," Quat said.

"There's no government order, so it's hard for the employers to reach any agreement with the FDH. Would you consider a special arrangement targeting the FDH because we are in a critical stage fighting the epidemic?"

But the labour secretary, Law Chi-kwong, said the pro-Beijing lawmaker's proposal may amount to discrimination.

"We have to consider the law, while being reasonable and compassionate. If we just target FDH it may be a question of discrimination. If we talk about reason, the infection rate of FDH is 0.055 percent which is lower than the 0.1 percent for the general public," Law said.

"If you talk about lockdown making people stay at home, for FDH they are made to stay at their work place. So it doesn't make sense."

Other lawmakers also called on the government to do more to address the issue, with Alice Mak from the Federation of Trade Unions urging officials to test foreign domestic helpers regularly.

In response, Law said the administration needs to take into account the availability of resources as well as the sustainability of such an approach.