Opinion | Why is Hong Kong rewarding employment agencies when the industry is complicit in human trafficking?
- The government has endorsed a subsidy scheme for employment agencies hit by Covid-19. Yet the scheme does not acknowledge that a large subset of the industry has been criticised for facilitating labour trafficking through debt-based coercion
What should a government do when it is called out for complicity in relation to human trafficking and modern slavery? For the Hong Kong government, its response is to blindly divert money to the very industry that is the largest facilitator of these crimes.
Under the scheme, agencies will receive a one-off lump sum subsidy, with employment agencies that provide domestic worker placement services receiving HK$50,000 for each main licence. The only eligibility requirement for these payments is that agencies must hold a valid licence as of May 31.
The Labour Department is not considering factors such as complaints, convictions or even economic activity when authorising the payouts. This is remarkable, especially given that, out of the more than 1,400 domestic worker employment agencies in Hong Kong, hundreds are not economically active.

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It is a known agency strategy for owners to hold multiple licences in case they lose a licence for unethical or illegal business practices. For example, in 2019, one address has 17 employment agencies registered there. If that is still the case, this could collectively net a payout of HK$850,000.