REPORTER: Adrian Brown
This is the closest Jenny has come to holding her 4-year-old daughter Valerie in over a year.
JENNY: Can you stand up? Whoa, look how short! Whoa!
Jenny has been a domestic worker in Hong Kong for 15 years. Today is a rare treat - she's borrowed a friend's laptop in order to Skype her family in the Philippines.
REPORTER: And when will you next see her?
JENNY: On September, 2012.
REPORTER: So almost two years?
JENNY: Almost two years. Yeah. It's a long, long... .
REPORTER: Wow. That's painful.
JENNY: Yeah, very painful. But no choice.
Jenny is one of the estimated 300,000 Filipina and Indonesian women working as live-in maids inHong Kong. An invisible army most of the time, Sunday is their day off and with nowhere else to go, they congregate where they can - in public squares and subways, even by the side of the road. This is where they can find their friends. This is where they can talk anything they want.
CYNTHIA ABDON-TELLEZ, MISSION FOR MIGRANT WORKERS: This is where they can find their friends, this is where they can talk anything they want, this is where they also can be happy and be sad - be themselves.
It's a sight locals are used to, but it fascinates visitors.
MAN: Well, um, I was wondering if it was some sort of protest or organised movement of some sort, but um...
REPORTER: They're all domestic helpers.
MAN: That's quite incredible. And this is how they spend their day off...
The maids - many working 16-hour days for a minimum wage - form the backbone of domestic life here. But resentment towards them is growing. Furious locals are demanding that foreign maids be forbidden from calling Hong Kong home.
ACTIVIST: They shouldn't have the right to stay in Hong Kong because they just work in Hong Kong.
It all stems from a maid who's worked in Hong Kong for 25 years - last year, she had her application for permanent residency rejected. She took her claim to Hong Kong's High Court, and won. But in a bitter legal case, the Hong Kong government is fighting back.
The issue here is one of equal rights - whether the 300,000 maids from South-East Asia who do the territory's dirty jobs should be allowed to stay in Hong Kong permanently if they qualify. These people say no - they say "You can work here, but you can't stay for good."
Under the former British colony's mini constitution, any foreigner who remains in Hong Kong for seven years is entitled to apply to become a permanent resident. Immigration guidelines have always specifically excluded maids, though.
ACTIVIST: This is not about nationality.
REPORTER: Yes, it is.
ACTIVIST: This is about the Hong Kong interests.
REPORTER: It's about race.
ACTIVIST: If they come here, 150 a day, I don't care they are what kind of races - they come here based on the right visa, legally, we can afford, that's fine. We're not here - you won't see us here.
Cynthia Abdon-Tellez is from the Mission for Migrant Workers. She says their contribution to Hong Kong's booming economy is often overlooked.
CYNTHIA ABDON-TELLEZ: It's unfortunate that some people do not see the worth of foreign domestic workers, because in a way, they are one of those who have provided the space for members of a household to do other work.
Hong Kong's maids are not only unappreciated, she says, but many would prefer if they were kept out of sight. A few years ago, the Hong Kong government proposed confining the maids to an underground car park on their one day off.
CYNTHIA ABDON-TELLEZ: I think there's a reason why they don't want them here - because there's an eyesore. That's what they say. The proponents are saying, "Ugh, it's it's such a posh centre of Hong Kong, and you have them there. It's just an eyesore."
REPORTER: Are they second-class citizens?
CYNTHIA ABDON-TELLEZ: They are, in fact. It's unfortunate. That's very sad.
Many locals are afraid that if maids are given the right to stay permanently in Hong Kong, it'll open the floodgates to thousands applying, overwhelming the former British colony.
JOSEPH LAW: Social resources - education, accommodation, everything. We simply cannot accommodate a huge number of population.
Joseph Law is chairman of the group that defends the rights of those who employ foreign helpers.
JOSEPH LAW: We object to that idea, not because we discriminate - it's because of the number of people involved. That is the main reason. But since this case, especially when the first hearing found in favour of the applicant, then - immediately - the Immigration Department received a large number of applications - over 100 aday, on one particular day.
And he says there should be no exception, including his own maid, Alena.
JOSEPH LAW: Alena? Could you move that back? That way? That's it. Don't bang it against the wall. I like my maid, OK? But it doesn't mean that, by rewarding her, she should get the right of a vote. I always argue - the way that I should reward her for her good work is by a good package, by good conditions of service.
REPORTER: So he's a good employer?
ALENA: Fair. Fair.
REPORTER: Would do you want to live in Hong Kong full-time?
ALENA: Um... Not sure...
REPORTER: Not sure?
JOSEPH LAW: That's right. Not sure. Potential.
Josephina Toledo is packing up and returning to the Philippines, unemployed once more, and with two children to provide for. Verbally and emotionally abused by her employer, her final humiliation came when she was thrown out on the street.
JOSEPHINA TOLEDO (Translation): The husband and wife came out and shouted at me. Then they both laughed and he gave the “f**k you” sign. Then the man came back again and he took several photos of us. The agency was told that it was my fault that they had shouted at me. But, at the time, I was just crying. That’s why I can’t forget it, because I really felt bad about my male employer for doing the “f**k you” sign at us.
She's now in a refuge for abused maids. Its location is secret.
ESTER BANGCAWAYAN, REFUGE COORDINATOR: There was one person - she was raped several times. She's new also in Hong Kong - she doesn't know what to do.
Refuge coordinator Ester Bangcawayan says the victim suffering in silence, and abuse goes unreported.
REPORTER: It goes on?
ESTER BANGCAWAYAN: It goes on.
REPORTER: The girls are too frightened to report it because they might lose their job?
ESTER BANGCAWAYAN: They might lose their job, and they enjoy that.
If the Hong Kong government wins the dispute, these women will continue to have few rights and no access to social welfare.
WAHYUNI: So I am now feeling better than last time because every day is so painful. I just finished now operation because I have some tumour in my stomach.
Wahyuni has just arrived at the refuge from hospital. She tells me that, while she was being treated for cancer, her employer terminated her contract. Wahyuni thinks her employer feared having to pay her medical costs. Her hospital bill remains unpaid.
MARK DALY, CANADIAN LAWYER: I think there is a racial element to this, and it's touched a raw nerve with people on a number of levels.
Canadian lawyer and Hong Kong resident Mark Daly has taken up the maids' campaign for permanent residency. He's up against the legal arsenal of the Hong Kong government, which he says is stirring up bias against the domestic helpers by claiming hundreds of thousands of them could eventually settle here.
MARK DALY: I'm surprised that the government have thrown out those exaggerated numbers - you'll have to ask them. I'm shocked by it.
REPORTER: So what's the motivation?
MARK DALY: Again, you'll have to ask them. I think it's absurd. I think there is, unfortunately, a lot of popular support based on misinformation that I think has been promoted by the government and certain pro-government political parties for their own political reasons.
The Hong Kong government won't comment while the matter is before the courts, but it's warned that, if it loses, it may ask China's central government to intervene.
ANNOUNCER: So for today, we're inviting everyone - this is the first day of giving care under the proxy of give care to our care-givers.
There are others who do care for Hong Kong's underclass of domestic workers. Today, the Missionfor Migrant Workers is offering free services to all maids. Apart from complimentary haircuts and manicures, the mission is also offering counselling and employment advice.
CYNTHIA ABDON-TELLEZ: The only reason why we exist as a mission is because there is kind of a significant number of those who are exploited.
Cynthia Abdon-Tellez, from the mission of migrant workers, says Hong Kong's maids have a long battle ahead of them.
CYNTHIA ABDON-TELLEZ: Foreign domestic workers are not a group of people who never carried the burden. A lot of policies are almost always against them. They're not taking away jobs. They're not doing that. They're here working diligently, and I think that has to be recognised.
But for Jenny, this is not the life she wants forever. Hong Kong, she says, has nothing to fear.
JENNY: We're here to save and to have our own house - such that when we go back to Philippines, we can live together with our family.
REPORTER: It's a big sacrifice.
JENNY: Yeah. We sacrificed ourself for their own good.
MARK DAVIS: Adrian Brown in Hong Kong. The plight of Filipino maids around the world has now become a foreign policy issue for the Filipino government, starting at last to lobby on their behalf - as they should, with 20% of the country's GDP coming from the wages they send home.
Reporter/Camera
ADRIAN BROWN
Producers
VICTORIA STROBL
FRAN TINLEY
Editors
DAVID POTTS
WAYNE LOVE
Translations/Subtitling
RONALD MANILA
KONG WO TANG
Original Music composed by VICKI HANSEN