Mr. LAM Woon-kwong assumed office as the Chairperson of the Equal Opportunities Commission on 1 February 2010. Mr. Lam has expressed his commitment to reach out and to work closely with all stakeholders including community members in mainstreaming equal opportunities issues in Hong Kong.
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Concerned by the media reports about banks’ refusal to open accounts for members from the Pakistani community in Hong Kong, the EOC has approached the community members to offer assistance. The EOC has already written to the banks and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority to seek clarifications on their positions on this issue. It is unlawful, under the Race Discrimination Ordinance (RDO), for service providers to give less favourable treatments on the ground of race. Following the EOC’s press release on the subject, it was reported in the press that the Hong Kong Monetary Authority has denied advising banks not to offer services to some nationalities and says it will follow up complaints filed by ethnic minorities.
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As more than half of the ethnic minority population in Hong Kong work as domestic helpers, we have produced a booklet Understanding the Race Discrimination Ordinance: A Guide to Foreign Domestic Helpers and their Employers to raise awareness among the employers and their domestic helpers on their rights and responsibilities under the RDO and how to seek redress from the EOC. The booklet gives a general overview of the RDO and its relevant provisions that apply to foreign domestic helpers and their employers. To make it easy to understand, the booklet also provides some examples on situations that could constitute racial discrimination.
Based on the ethnic composition of the domestic helpers in Hong Kong, the booklet has also been translated into five ethnic minority languages—Indonesian, Nepali, Sinhalese, Tagalog and Thai.
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