Foreign maids in Guangzhou told to pack up their mops

By Zhan Lisheng (

China Daily

)
Updated: 2008-08-29 08:51

GUANGZHOU: Foreign maids working here under false pretenses face being deported under a new move to get tough on illegal aliens, the city government was reported as saying Thursday.

The crackdown will focus particularly on the thousands of Filipinas employed by local families, Nanfang Daily quoted Guangzhou officials as saying.

The announcement came in response to questions raised at the recent municipal people's congress.

According to the newspaper report, the city government said that while Guangzhou is keen to attract highly skilled professionals from around the world, it does not want to be overrun by foreigners working as manual laborers or in the service industry.

He Zhihong, one of the congress deputies who called for the government action, said: "There has been a huge surge in the number of foreigners living and working in Guangzhou.

"Many of them are here illegally and they are taking away jobs from Chinese workers."

The country's loose procedures regarding visa applications were making it easy for them, she said.

While there are no figures for the number of illegal aliens working in Guangzhou, the Nanfang Weekend reported in March that there are about 800 Filipina maids working in Shenzhen.

Under Chinese law, individual citizens are not allowed to employ foreigners. However, maids often register with labor bureaus as teachers to get around the restriction.

Guangzhou's foreign experts administration, and its public security, education, and labor and social security bureaus have been ordered to beef up their efforts to identify and deal with all foreigners who are employed on an illegal basis, the Nanfang Daily report said.

Guangdong police said that last year, almost 7,000 foreigners were found to be living and working in Guangdong without proper documents, some of whom were engaged in organized crime.

Local man Xu Bingzhong said: "Guangzhou is an open city and we welcome foreign friends. However, we should try to attract foreign talent, not just manual workers.

"It's high time that the government did something about it."

Under a regulation on the management of foreign workers issued in 1996, all people moving to China for the purposes of work must apply for a valid visa and work permit.

In an effort to shed its image as a manufacturing hub, in recent years, Guangdong has been keen to attract skilled people from both home and abroad.

Last week, the provincial government announced a plan for a "top talent award", with prizes of up to 30 million yuan ($4.4 million), and also offered subsidies of up to 100 million yuan for scientific research teams.