Grieving relatives of domestic helpers killed in the Tai Po fire have struggled to break the news to victims’ children while fending off scammers targeting their compensation from Hong Kong authorities, according to a workers’ rights advocate after a trip to Indonesia.
Esther Tse Yan-yin, an organiser from the Association for the Rights of Industrial Accident Victims, travelled to Indonesia in January to visit the immediate relatives of eight helpers who died in the inferno at Wang Fuk Court last November.
A total of 10 foreign domestic helpers, aged between 32 and 48, perished in the fire at the housing estate. Nine were Indonesian and one was Filipino.
Moving from one village to another in some of the most remote parts of the archipelagic nation, Tse brought cash from donations for the helpers’ families and found many of them still shocked or in deep grief over their loved ones’ deaths.
She recounted the story of Siti Khotimah, 40, who was looking forward to reuniting with her 11-year-old daughter after six years.
A few months earlier, Khotimah had showed her daughter a bracelet during a video call. The child’s name was engraved on the bracelet and it was meant to be her birthday present this year.
