Hands Of Shame

By Fr Frank Pidgeon CSsR

Warly comes from Bukidnon, from a remote barrio on the island of Mindanao in Southern Philippines.  She is barely thirty, the mother of four.  Her husband is a farmer.  Warly completed her high school education, but she didn’t manage to go to college.

However any lack in her education is more than compensated for by a sturdy but gentle character.  Warly is a woman of surprising maturity, one who thinks and expresses herself clearly and rationally.  Thirty years on the rice fields of Bukidnon, of untiring devotion to her husband and children have taught her to eliminate all show from her life.  Warly is not given to exaggeration.

Terror in Hong Kong

The need to ensure a better education for her children led her to make the difficult decision to leave home and work as a domestic helper in Hong Kong.

Nothing in her previous life could have prepared her for the torment she suffered barely a month after arriving there.  The memory of her ordeal stiffly haunts her.  During the few hours we spent with her, she frequently lapsed into silence, her face reddened and tears began to form in her eyes.  Powerful emotions were flooding her heart at this time.  Her inner turmoil was evident.

It happened in the Causeway Bay Apartment on the morning of February 25, 2000.  Warly, newly arrived in Hong Kong, accidentally burned the camisole of her employer, Ms. Liu Man-kuen.  In a fury, the employer ordered her to place both hands on the ironing board.  Seizing the hot iron, she pressed it firmly across the back of her hands.  “This is your punishment for what you have done,” she shrieks at her.

Punishment indeed.  Warly Achacoso’s hands are scarred for life.

Too little punishment

Christians believe that all suffering, no matter how hideous, is redemptive.  With this in mind we try to make sense of Warly Achacoso’s ordeal.

We cannot excuse what has been done.  Warly herself has declared that she “will never forgive” her employer for what she has done.  “She deserved what she got (18 months in jail),” said Warly, the day the sentence was announced.  “What do you think now?” we asked her. “Kulang (it’s too little),” Warly answered.  And yet, as a measure of her goodness and self-respect, she declared in the same breath that “not all Hong Kong employers are bad”.  Remarkably, she still wants to continue her work inHong Kong.

Out of Job

After her employer was sentenced, the magistrate recommended that Warly file a civil complaint for damages.  Nobody could question that a civil suit is the way to go.  But there is a difficulty.  Her conditions of stay in Hong Kong do not permit her to be employed while a case, either criminal or civil, is underway.  The civil case could take years before being resolved.  In the meantime Warly will be out of a job, and out of pocket.

TNT (Tulay ng Tagumpay) believes that in a case as notorious as Warly’s, Immigration might allow an exception.  There is a further suggestion.  Many years ago, a domestic helper in Singapore who came to be known as the ‘Iron Lady’ had a hot iron applied to both cheeks and upper thighs by her employer.  Like Warly she had burned the garment of her employer.

Barbaric act compensated

Singapore was outraged.  Less perhaps for Mercy’s ordeal and more that a barbarian was discovered living in the city state.  A ‘barbaric’ deed like this was not supposed to happen in a caring society.  Ages past slaves were routinely branded with hot irons, but this was slick, sophisticated, squeaky-clean Singapore in the early 1990s.

After her employer’s trial and conviction, one of Singapore’s leading plastic surgeons offered to repair Mercy’s cheeks and thighs free of charge.  A year following the delicate surgery, the damage done to Mercy’s face was barely perceptible.

Is it too much to hope that something similar might be done for Warly?

Has Warly suffered in vain?

Legco Councilor Ms. Choy So-yuk claimed that the sentence imposed by the magistrate was too harsh.  It would only cause “fear” among employers “because they may be heavily penalized if they abuse their domestic helpers.”  Wasn’t this exactly what the magistrate had in mind?  Employers need constant reminders that they have to take good care of their helpers. The sentence imposed on Warly’s employer reminds them of the consequences they can expect if they maltreated them.  The employment contract is not a permit to abuse.

If Warly Achacoso’s case leads to better treatment for the thousand of domestic helpers inHong Kong then Warly will not have suffered in vain.

Pack of Lies

Ms. Liu Man-kuen’s defense lawyer tried to show that Warly’s wounds were self-inflicted.  No one really believed that a woman as serene and composed as Warly, a mother of four would do such a thing.  Nor did the magistrate believe the story either.  He threw out the claim, branding Ms. Liu’s story as a “pack of lies”.

What is puzzling is how Warly allowed both hands to be branded.  So we asked her.  “She burned both hands at the same time.  She asked me to place my hands on the ironing board.  Which I did.  Then holding one hand with her own and using her forearm to pin my other hand to the table, she burned me.  There was no struggle.”  We must remember that Warly was only one month in the country.  She was only a maid.  Even to the extent of preparing her hands to be branded by her employer.

An isolated incident?

An official of the Philippine Consulate believes that the case of Warly Achacoso was “an isolated incident”. If he means that it is not every day that an employer clamps a hot iron on her helper’s hands, we would have to agree.  But abuse, whether physical or psychological, is by no means isolated.  Much of it goes unreported.  Long after the event, domestic helpers will come forward to tell us that they chose to remain silent for fear of losing their job.  That abuse is not more common is both a tribute to the humanity of the employer and her helper’s flexibility and patience.

There is not trace of bitterness in Warly’s voice when she tells us that “not all Hong Kong employers are bad.”  Kevin Sinclair, respected columnist with the SCMP says that generally domestic helpers are well treated in Hong Kong.

Was Warly’s torment an isolated case because it is one of the few cases that have come to trial and been resolved in favor of the victim?

Ugly remembrance

“I’ve told my husband and my parents about what has happened.  But I cannot bear to tell my children.  This would only frighten them,” she says quietly.  As she speaks, she looks at her hands, and then buries them in her armpits, as if to put to rest forever the memory that rises to torment her.

Salamat sa TNT