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A small breeze runs under the 60-meter ferris wheel of the central port of Hong Kong. In the background, I Have Nothing by Whitney Houston. Three women stand on a granite bench, turning their backs on the ferris wheel and looking at the South China Sea . They start to sing. They barely defy.

"I missed this peace of mind. Being able to come here and play dumb without thinking that at any moment I can find fights between children and police. This city needed a break. We needed it." The Philippine December pronounces each word with force. And keep singing using a banana as an improvised microphone. She asks us to call her as the last month of the year because she doesn't want her bosses to identify her. She is a helper , as domestic workers are known in Hong Kong.

"We have spent a few very hectic months. People have taken to the streets to protest against China and have paralyzed the entire city . That seems good to me if what they ask for is fair," says this 47-year-old woman who arrived in the former colony a decade ago She, like the rest of domestic workers, lives in the same house as her employers. It is what the law dictates if they want to work in Hong Kong.

" In my case I have done many more hours than I should because my bosses wanted to go to a demonstration and I had to keep an eye on the children," he adds. "The problem is that this has affected many vulnerable people who have nothing to do with this movement. There are colleagues who have been fired for being late to the houses where they work because the subway was blocked. Others have not been able to enjoy his days off for fear of encountering the chaos there was . "

A few meters away from these women, in Edinburgh Square, hundreds of kids dressed in black begin to arrive for a sit-in against the use of tear gas by the anti-discrimination agents. "I understand that people may be pissed off and afraid of losing their freedoms," says another of the assistants that mimics Whitney Houston. " Well, I have not been able to understand what they are really asking for," interrupts the third woman . "The police have pretty much let them burn the city and attack those who say they support China. Before, this city was amazing to live in. We went out on our day off - on Sundays - and we gathered in the park. Now many we don't do it because we don't know what we're going to find or if we're going to be able to go home later. "

This is another face of what has happened in Hong Kong in recent months. That of their immigrant workers. The 386,075 domestic employees, according to the last 2018 census. Around 200,000 are from the Philippines. The rest, mostly, from Indonesia. "We have been fighting for our rights for years, because we continue to be the most vulnerable and exploited group in the city. We cannot get into these protests. I just want the city to return to normal as soon as possible," December ruling. And the three women continue their Whitney Houston songs.

Calm tense

Since the last local elections - on November 24 - when the pro-democratic parties, those who started the marches asking for universal suffrage to Beijing, swept the elections, the city has lived a calm that had not been seen for a long time. Life has continued normally. And that has been appreciated by the housekeepers. Although this Sunday the city bathed again in a mass demonstration and some of them gathered in Victoria Park to eat on the grass, play cards, get manicured, sing or dance, oblivious to the noise of those hundreds of thousands who They celebrated six months of protests.

Before that, this Saturday at noon, about 300 people concentrated in support of a helper that was deported last Monday. The reason, according to protesters and several local newspapers: record the protests as a journalist for an Indonesian digital newspaper.

She, Yuli Riswati (39 years old), who worked as a maid in a house, took advantage of the Sundays she delivered to cover the protests. She was arrested because her visa had expired in July. This has been the argument they have given from the Immigration Department. "During my 20 years as an activist I have never heard of immigration officers who arrest domestic workers on their employers' floors for the expiration of their visas, " explains Fish Ip, regional coordinator of the International Domestic Workers Federation of Hong Kong .

"Domestic workers have always lived here in a precarious state. But we had not seen this," adds Dolores Balladares, president of the Asian Migrant Coordinating Body. "The law obliges them to sign contracts for two years and to live with their employers . They spend days of 16 hours a day poorly paid almost without rest and we have even received many reports of torture and abuse," continues Balladares.

Hard reality

In Hong Kong, the average monthly salary is usually at 17,500 Hong Kong dollars (2,020 euros). That of domestic workers does not usually exceed 600 euros. In March, the news that a Filipino housekeeper had been fired after she was diagnosed with uterine cancer, brought to light again the harsh reality in which many of these women live.

A report based on hundreds of interviews with these workers by Justice Center, a human rights organization, states that one in six domestic workers lives in conditions of forced labor and only 5.4% say they have not suffered any type of exploitation .

A situation that has made some go to social networks in search of religious guidance. And that has also taken advantage of some Muslim extremists. In two years, according to an investigation by the Institute for Conflict Policy Analysis (IPAC), 47 household employees living in Hong Kong were captured by a jihadist boyfriend. Some even came to Syria.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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