On 25 February 2019, the Administration and the Bills Committee on Discrimination Legislation (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill 2018 (the Bill) met with deputations, including the EOC, at the Legislative Council. Prior to the meeting, the EOC had submitted its views on the Bill, which seeks to widen the scope of protection under the anti-discrimination ordinances by implementing eight of the 73 recommendations proposed by the EOC under the Discrimination Law Review (DLR) in 2016.

The Bill, as it currently stands, falls short of fully protecting breastfeeding women from discrimination and persons in a common workplace from harassment:

- The Bill defines a breastfeeding woman as a woman engaged in the act of breastfeeding her child or expressing breast milk to feed her child, or a person who feeds her child with her breast milk. However, situations may arise where the biological mother is deceased, absent or medically unfit to breastfeed her child. Imposing such a condition, in effect, denies protection from discrimination to wet nurses, and may deny protection for mothers breastfeading an adopted child or a surrogate baby, or women who feed their child with donated breast milk.

- While the Bill introduces the notion of “workplace participant” to extend protection from sexual, disability and racial harassment to persons in a common workplace (but not necessarily in an employment relationship), such as contract workers and their principals, its definition does not cover volunteers nor interns. This is despite the rising popularity of internships in Hong Kong, and the fact that complaints lodged with the EOC in the past suggest that harassment among volunteers does occur. In excluding volunteers and interns, the Bill botches an opportunity to fully close the gap in protection for victims of harassment in the workplace.

The EOC has elaborated on these issues in its submission with reference to similar jurisdictions. We also call on the Government to lay out a clear and detailed timeline as to when and how the other 19 higher priority recommendations from the DLR will be taken forward, including amending the Race Discrimination Ordinance to provide protection from racial discrimination in relation to the exercise of Government powers and functions, and introducing a duty under the Disability Discrimination Ordinance to make reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities.

• Read the EOC’s submission
• Watch the video of the meeting
• Read the EOC’s report on the DLR