A group of domestic helpers from Sri Lanka interviewed last week in Hong Kong expressed views which are representative of hundreds of thousands of migrant workers, as well as those aspiring to be migrant workers. When asked why they have come to work in Hong Kong the unanimous reply was, “we simply cant earn enough to make ends meet (in our own country).”
The group interviewed was mostly women in their 30s and some in their 20s. Most were married women who had to sacrifice the comfort of association with their children and husbands, and often their parents, to make a living which would allow their families to meet the most basic needs. Some have been in Hong Kong for over ten years and many for over five years. They work in households as domestic helpers and have only one free day a week for themselves which they spend with fellow workers who they meet in places such as Kowloon Park where thousands of other domestic workers from other countries also meet. Everyone interviewed claimed that they were very happy despite of the separation from their loved ones because they were contributing to the maintenance of their families.
A couple, one working as a driver and the wife as the domestic helper in the same household, said that both of their fathers were dead but they were able to send money to their mothers for their upkeep. Had they been in their country they would not have been able to do this. The women also expressed satisfaction for being able to contribute to the education of their children.
They all claimed that they do want to go back but that will be when it is possible for them in their own country to make a living that is adequate for the basic needs of their families. They were quick to recognise that this will not happen very soon. One young girl stated that, Yes, I want to go back and marry a boy from my own country but for that first, I have to earn enough.
That the living conditions in Sri Lanka are extremely difficult is what is told in every corner of the country among the ordinary folk. A journalist working for over 15 years said that his monthly earnings is around Rs. 19,000/= which is around HK$ 1,300 or US$ 166. Most people earn less. Unlike in the past the expenses for the education of children and the prices of medicine has increased and people find these are beyond their budgets. Food prices and prices of all staples have increased.
One person stated that he was one of eight children but his father with an average job was able to maintain his family. Now he and his wife are both working but they are unable to meet the needs of their only child.
The most primary function of a government is to create the economic environment within which people can make an adequate living. This function of the government has failed and there is no controversy about this failure. However, people are unable to get their grievances articulated or heard. The attack on the freedom of expression and speech, for which Sri Lanka has achieved notoriety the world over, is preventing any form of discussion on the living conditions of the people. The people complain about the miseries of their lives in every private conversation. However, there is no public space for people to discuss these matters and to develop consensus on achieving any form of change in these conditions. The most basic problems of their lives are thus confined to a private sphere.
Sometime back, in the elections, one of the most important items discussed was the conditions of the kitchen. It used to be said that the women running their kitchens determined the outcome of the elections. This however, is no longer the case. What people eat and how much and how people can afford medical care or schooling or how to maintain public transport, public services or even how to deal with the unemployment issue are not matters which are talked about in the political platform.
An extremely sophisticated machinery of repression has developed to repress the nature of the political discourse that gives meaning to adult franchise. In this machinery of repression the policing system plays a major role. The complete collapse of the discipline within the police and the transformation of the police into a violent force in all localities, who themselves are involved in corruption, is a result of the mobilization of the police for the electoral purposes of the ruling regimes. What the policing system does in terms of criminal investigations is no longer a matter of much concern. A police force that can frighten the population is an essential component of electoral politics that is based on the capacity to create fear. Added to the police are various types of goon squads, private body guards of politicians and other mysterious forces who are active all the time in creating an atmosphere of violence everywhere. The policing system is neither willing nor capable, nor are they allowed to intervene into any of these things.
Thus, the collapse of the rule of law that everyone is talking about is not an accident but a part of a greater political design to defeat the actual participate of people in political life. Such absence of the rule of law makes it possible to have elections without the actual participation of the people. The peoples sovereignty is not possible without rule of law. The talk of the sovereignty of the people is a cynical mockery of the local population who have no alternative but to elect the very people who will work towards the deterioration of their living conditions. The election has become the means by which the people express consent to have less real wages which means less food, less care for their children, less education, less medical care and very bad transportation systems. Under these conditions local and international pressure to improve rule of law is answered with distain. Sanctimonious proclamations about inquiries into crimes, prosecutions, and respect for the supremacy of the law are expressed by the same persons who preside over this system of ruthless repression which holds down every form of the peoples participation.
Seventy eight years of adult franchise has created nothing more than a mockery of the sovereignty of the people. Local and international advocacy for change needs to understand the enormous transformation of Sri Lanka into a ruthlessly repressive political apparatus if they are to contribute positively to a meaningful change within which it will be possible for people to participate in the discussion of and acting upon matters that are of the greatest importance to their own lives. The monstrous situation that is produced by the deliberate destruction of the rule of law only creates an equally monstrous situation for people living in the country. No wonder even a domestic helpers job abroad is seen as a boon by so many people.
