AGAINST EXCO MEMBER REGINA IP’S  ANTI-FILIPINO, ANTI-MIGRANT AND ANTI-WOMEN ARTICLE
Channel: terry narcissan tsui
Date: 28/04/2015

26 April, 10am in Chater Garden, Central:

JOINT STATEMENT AGAINST EXCO MEMBER REGINA IP’S 
ANTI-FILIPINO, ANTI-MIGRANT AND ANTI-WOMEN ARTICLE

We, the Filipinos in Hong Kong, hereby reiterate our protest against an article written by legislator and Executive Council member Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee in which she implied that a large number of Filipinas working as domestic helpers are seducing their expatriate male employers and ruining families.

We have read a full English translation of her column piece originally written in Chinese and published by Ming Pao on April 17, and agree that what she had written was anti-Filipino, anti-migrant and anti-women.

We take notice of a public apology that she subsequently issued on April 24, and claim this as a victory in our campaign to correct a grievous wrong committed against our migrant women. We welcome this conciliatory gesture, but hope that Mrs. Ip will be more circumspect in what she says in the future to prevent another backlash and social division. 

We also take issue with Mrs Ip’s insistence that we misunderstood her true intent in the article. We have thus decided to raise this issue before the Equal Opportunities Commission, so the full impact of what she had written could be brought to light, and our migrant women given relief.

We have also decided to go ahead with our protest march today to call on the government to: 

1) Take steps to ensure that no one, least of all its top officials like Mrs Ip, does any act that fosters discrimination against any ethnic minority group, particularly Filipinos;

2) Do more to ensure protection for the rights of ethnic minority groups, especially migrant workers:

3) Actively promote and uphold a genuine policy of social inclusion and non-discrimination.

We are doing this to send out a clear message that we will not tolerate any form of abuse or discrimination, especially those that target the most vulnerable members of our community, our migrant workers. 

We remain committed to take any and all forms of actions available, including holding protest actions and filing suits, to ensure that an incident like this does not happen again.

Hong Kong SAR, 26 April 2015.