Filipinos still work illegally as maids in Guangzhou

By Zhan Lisheng (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-12-26 07:49

GUANGZHOU -- Despite the local government's tough measures to crack down on illegal foreign workers, there is still a high number of Filipinos working as domestic helpers in upscale residential areas in Guangzhou, an official said Thursday.

"There are hundreds of Filipino housemaids working for Hong Kong citizens living here and high-income local citizens in upmarket residential quarters," Tian Xin, vice-chairman of the Guangzhou housework association, said.

It is illegal for anyone to employ a foreigner as domestic help in China, Tian said.

Tian, however, was confident that the number of illegal foreign workers in the city will not increase rapidly.

"They (Filipinos) demand a much higher salary than local domestic helpers and there is, of course, the language problem. It's not easy for them to communicate with local citizens," said Tian.

A security guard at the Clifford New Village, a plush residential complex situated in the Panyu district, said on condition of anonymity that a number of the area's residents employ Filipino maids.

"Most of the maids work for the villa owners from Hong Kong," he said.

According to a recent report in Nanfang Daily, there are at least two housework service centers in Guangzhou that supply Filipino domestic help to residents. Most of the Filipinos come to the city under false pretenses of teaching or touring, the newspaper said.

The report said it costs an employer 50,000 yuan ($7,300) a year to keep a Filipino maid.

"Their English accent is too strong, so the locals find it hard to understand them. They are not really up to the mark with their housework, nor is their cooking too great," the report said.

A senior executive of a foreign-funded enterprise, surnamed Li, claimed to know both the good sides as well as the negative aspects of keeping Filipino helps.

She said she had once hired a Filipino to take care of her elderly mother.

"She (the maid) was very hardworking," she said. However, the language problem eventually became too much to handle. "She could not speak Mandarin, not to mention Cantonese. My mother found it almost impossible to communicate with her," she said.

The city government of Guangzhou reiterated its determination to get tough on illegal aliens, Filipino maids in particular, in early August in response to the challenges of the deputies to the municipal people's congress.

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 strictly with all foreigners who are employed in the city illegally.