New Laws Needed To Protect Helpers: Kenneth Leung

Accountancy sector lawmaker Kenneth Leung has urged the government to introduce new legislation to make life better for the city's legion of foreign domestic helpers.

Speaking on RTHK's Letter to Hong Kong programme, Leung also criticised the city's failure to tackle the related problem of human trafficking. He said Sunday's Mother's Day holiday should also remind people that many of the 380,000 foreign helpers in the city were mothers themselves.

"| regret that the government has yet failed to consider passing a comprehensive legislation to combat trafficking in persons," he said.

"Dennis Kwok and | have worked together in drafting a member's bill entitled 'The Modern Slavery Bill 2017' to tackle trafficking in persons and the protection of foreign domestic helpers.

"Apparently no progress has been made on the side the government (through the chief executive) to give consent to the bill so that it can be tabled with the Legislative Council for first reading. | note though that our neighbour, Macao, enacted a piece of legislation in 2008 to combat trafficking in persons."

He pointed to the US State Department's human trafficking report, which placed the SAR on the second-level of its "watchlist" of jurisdictions that could be used for trafficking.

Leung dedicated the letter to the mother of Tanya Chan, his fellow lawmaker who is recovering from a major operation as she awaits sentencing for her role in the 2014 Occupy movement.