Racial Discrimination Towards Foreign Domestic Worker

Updated 26 January 2026

Table of Contents

Acts of discrimination

While different countries may have their own anti-discrimination ordinance, as a rule of thumb, you should not:

Prohibit your worker from praying.
Your Indonesian worker might be a devout Muslim and needs to pray five times a day, sometimes in very early morning. You cannot tell her to not pray without valid reasons. Some employers might be frightened by how they pray, but it is mostly due to lack of knowledge. Some employers might be worried that their children will start imitating how the helper prays. It is a groundless worry. It is good for your children to experience different cultures at a young age, and if you have strong religious belief yourself, you can ask your helper to close the door while praying.

Prohibit your worker from fasting.
When Ramadan comes, your worker will not eat or drink for a month from sunrise to sunset. You should try your best to accommodate your helper’s need and let her wake up early to eat if she needs to. Do not worry that she will not have the energy to do household chores or to take care of your children. They must have done it for a lot of years, and they will be fine. If she has shown signs that she cannot bear the fasting, such as if she has fainted due to fasting, you should advise her to make some compromises, such as asking her to take in some water during daytime.

Prohibit your worker from wearing a headscarf.
Wearing a headscarf is integral to the identity for most Muslim women. Unless you have concerns for her safety, such as her headscarf is too long and you are afraid that it will catch fire when she is cooking, you can advise her to adjust the length of her headscarf or wear another style of headscarf (not all Muslim headscarves are the same).

Provide your helper with inappropriate food.
Most Muslims do not eat pork or anything with alcohol. As an employer, you have the obligation to provide your helper with food that she can eat.

Create a hostile working environment.
If either of your parents uses racial slurs to your helper, you yourself are not discriminating against her. However, if you do not do anything about it, you are responsible for creating a hostile working environment. If you place anything in the house that degrades your helper’s religion, it also constitutes racial discrimination.

Reject your worker’s request for exchanging holidays for no valid reasons.
Sometimes your helper might request to exchange her holidays to get days off on her cultural holidays, such as she might suggest to work during Chinese New Year but get a day off on Indonesian Independence Day. However, rules are usually more lenient here. As long as you can give a reason why you want your helper to not take a day off on that day, such as your need her to help serve the many guests that are coming, then it would not constitute racial discrimination.

Note that your helper can eat pork and not wear a headscarf and still be a Muslim. There are also a lot of sects in Islam, and they may follow different practices. Some sects are stricter, and would not tolerate touching pork, being around people who are drinking alcohol and having loud music in the house. Therefore, while interviewing the helper, ask her what her religious practices are. Do not assume.

Domestic workers are responsible for taking care of your children and your aged parents. Make sure they have the respect and rights they deserve!

Does nationality matter?

It is important to avoid falling into stereotypes by linking certain personal attributes – such as honesty, reliability, hard work or even a caring attitude – to certain nationalities. It is never possible to ascertain those based on nationality only. It is worth keeping in mind that they vary across individuals and nationality is hardly the only cause. Everyone has their working style and a unique personal attitude – and, as such, no generalizations can (nor should) be made.

What matters the most is how well you identify your needs and how clear you are about your expectations. Based on these, you will be able to establish criteria – and on these only – against which to assess helper profiles:

Overall, it is right to say that Filipinas tend to have a stronger education background than helpers from Indonesia or Myanmar and as such have a better command of the English language.
Domestic workers from Indonesia often have better Cantonese skills as their three-to-six-month pre-deployment training includes Cantonese classes. So, if you are finding a helper to care for an elderly who only speaks Cantonese, an Indonesian helper is more likely to be a better fit – as long as she actually speaks Cantonese!

Keep in mind that this is by no means a rigid rule. The main consideration when hiring should be experience and training.

While nationality doesn’t really matter when it comes to personal attributes, it does matter when certain rules and regulations are concerned.

Certain things such as the lead time necessary to process the paperwork to hire a new helper or a helper’s contract renewal, transfer procedures or even procedures to take your helper on holidays with you may vary depending on a helper’s country of origin.
Besides, as your helper will be staying with you, it will be crucial to understand cultural differences – personal beliefs being one of them – and acknowledge them to ensure that things are smooth. There is no general rule – but, zooming out, the majority of Filipinas are Christians; Indonesians are Muslims, and Burmese, Buddhists. Based on their personal beliefs, they might have preferences when it comes to rest days for example or even follow a specific diet. It is important to take into consideration those aspects and discuss them during the interview stage.

Discrimination ordinances in Hong Kong

There are 4 discrimination ordinances in Hong Kong:

Sex Discrimination Ordinance,
Disability Discrimination Ordinance,
Family Status Discrimination Ordinance, and
Race Discrimination Ordinance.

Your helper is protected by all of them, but Race Discrimination Ordinance might be the most relevant one. Learn how you can ensure that your domestic worker is not discriminated against and that her work performance would not be affected because of this.

The basic principle of the Race Discrimination Ordinance is that you cannot harass or discriminate against a person because of their race. It does not explicitly include religion in the definition of race, but in most cases, you are indirectly discriminating against someone’s race if you are discriminating against their religion. For examples, Filipinos are predominantly Roman Catholics while Indonesians are predominantly Muslims. If you are discriminating against your worker’s religion, which is an integral part of their racial identity, you are also discriminating against their race.

Your helper can file a discrimination case to the Equal Opportunity Commission (EOC) if she is discriminated against. Outside the workplace, you can still protect her from racial discrimination. For examples, on her rest day, she might still face discrimination such as she is not allowed to enter a mall or a bar. If she tells you that, you can help her lodge a complaint to the EOC after you have her consent.

Final Thought

Domestic helpers care for what matters most — your children, your parents, and your home. Respecting their culture, beliefs, and rights is not only a legal obligation, but a foundation for trust and harmony.

A home free from discrimination allows helpers to work with confidence and dignity — and helps families build healthier, more respectful relationships that last.