Indonesians in Hong Kong
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Indonesians in Hong Kong, numbering 102,100,Media Indonesia Online 30 November 2006 form the second-largest
ethnic minority The term 'minority group' has different usages depending on the context. According to its common usage, a minority group can simply be understood in terms of demographic sizes within a population: i.e. a group in society with the least number o ...
group in the territory, behind
Filipinos Filipinos ( tl, Mga Pilipino) are the people who are citizens of or native to the Philippines. The majority of Filipinos today come from various Austronesian ethnolinguistic groups, all typically speaking either Filipino, English and/or othe ...
.US Dept. of State 2000: Section 5 Most
Indonesians Indonesians (Indonesian: ''orang Indonesia'') are citizens or people originally from Indonesia, regardless of their ethnic or religious background. There are more than 1,300 ethnicities in Indonesia, making it a multicultural archipelagic coun ...
coming to Hong Kong today are those who arrive under limited-term contracts for employment as foreign domestic helpers. The Hong Kong Immigration Department allows the Indonesian consulate to force Indonesian domestic helpers to use employment agencies. Indonesian migrant workers in Hong Kong comprise 2.4% of all overseas Indonesian workers. Among the Indonesian population is a group of
Chinese Indonesians Chinese Indonesians ( id, Orang Tionghoa Indonesia) and colloquially Chindo or just Tionghoa are Indonesians whose ancestors arrived from China at some stage in the last eight centuries. Chinese people and their Indonesian descendants have l ...
, many of them finding refuge in Hong Kong after the civil persecution of them.


Employment

In 2006, it was estimated that 102,100 Indonesians worked in Hong Kong, of whom between 80 and 90% are estimated to be women.Villalba 2005 This represents a growth of almost 250% from the 41,000 recorded six years earlier, while during the same period, the number of domestic helpers from the Philippines declined. Some newspaper reports attributed this to the fact that Filipinas were "harder to manage", and additionally to the better training of Indonesian domestic helpers. Employment agencies in Indonesia sending workers to Hong Kong typically provide at least three to six months of training in household work, including a basic course in
Cantonese Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding are ...
, whereas similar agencies in the Philippines provide only fourteen days of training. The Employment agencies in Indonesia also work together with agencies in Hong Kong to extract higher fees from Indonesians after they start working in Hong Kong. Part of this extra fee is the money that agencies pay to women in Indonesia to start the migration process. The fees owed by the workers for training and housing are non-negotiable and usually figure as four to seven months of salary deduction (HK$21,000 or US$2,709). Indonesian domestic helpers in Hong Kong are represented by two unions, the Indonesian Migrant Workers Union (IMWU) and Coalition of Indonesian Migrant Workers' Organisations (KOTKIHO, ''Koalisi Organisasi Tenaga Kerja Indonesia Hong Kong''). According to organisations representing migrant workers, police intimidation of migrant workers is also a problem. Underpayment of wages and employer abuse is also a problem; Indonesian workers are widely paid as little as HK$1800 to HK$2000 per month. During the May 1998 riots in Jakarta, the Hong Kong government threatened to expel Indonesian labourers in Hong Kong in response to the Indonesian government's inaction on crimes committed against ethnic Chinese women; however, in the end, they did not act on this threat.


Pre-migration experience

Pre-migration experience for inductees into the domestic labor migration system involves overcrowding, shortage of food and facilities, abuse, and exploitation because the minimum standard regulation of the training centers set by the Indonesian Labour Department are not enforced. The camps in which the young women migrants are made to stay for the duration of their training also double as a system of incarceration. Following the period of training, the workers will spend up to a few years indefinitely detained until a job offer is made in order to prevent pregnancy and ensure that workers will be available when jobs are requested. The living conditions in the centers are very poor. Women are made to sleep on the floor packed tightly against each other, and only one bucket of water is afforded per person for bathing. There is little medical care for the health problems that result from these conditions, and physical and sexual abuse is a prevailing reality. Even the trip from home to the migration center often involves being sexually abused by the training center recruiter.


Remittances and savings

Indonesians in Hong Kong send remittances less frequently than
Indonesians in Japan form Japan's largest immigrant group from a Muslim-majority country. , Japanese government figures recorded 30,620 legal residents of Indonesian nationality and estimated further 4,947 more were living in the country illegally. Demography an ...
and Singapore, or Filipinos in Hong Kong; they were also somewhat less likely than Filipinos to use a bank to send such remittances, instead relying on friends or other informal networks such as
hawala Hawala or hewala ( ar, حِوالة , meaning ''transfer'' or sometimes ''trust''), also known as in Persian, and or in Somali, is a popular and informal value transfer system based on the performance and honour of a huge network of money ...
. Contrary to the trend in Latin America, where remittances from relatives working in the United States are often used to meet daily expenses or for other consumption, in one 2005 survey, more than half of Indonesian workers in Hong Kong reported that their families used their remittances to start businesses, each creating between one and five jobs.


Religion

In 2009, there were 220,000
Muslims Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abraha ...
in Hong Kong, of which Indonesians formed an estimated 120,000. Within their communities, services are provided to Indonesian Muslims and other Muslims mainly by NGOs. Most of these NGOs have courses in Arabic and the
Quran The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Classical Arabic, Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation in Islam, revelation from God in Islam, ...
so that children and newly Muslim people can learn the religion practices and language they need. There are seven Islamic schools in Hong Kong, run mainly by Islamic NGOs, for example the Chinese Muslim Cultural and Fraternal Association. Some of them have membership schemes and provide services like library, retails, etc. Some of the people also gather in the Mosques during religious celebrations. If they seem to mainly interact within their own local communities, it is because their social values and moral standards are different from mainstream Hong Kong culture.沈旭輝, 為伊斯蘭作嚮導-http://www.books4you.com.hk/


See also

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Demographics of Indonesia The population of Indonesia was 270.20 million according to the 2020 national census, an increase from 237.64 in 2010. Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world. Approximately 55% of Indonesia's population resides on Java, ...
*
Hong Kong-Indonesia relations Hong may refer to: Places * Høng, a town in Denmark *Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and specia ...


References


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Further reading

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External links


Indonesians in Hong Kong
{{Indonesian diaspora Asian diaspora in Hong Kong
Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
Islam in Hong Kong