影響近十分之一香港家庭的結構性失衡與監管盲區

行政長官閣下：

首先，我想感謝政府於龍年向新生兒家庭派發兩萬元新生嬰兒獎勵金。作為受益家庭之一，我欣賞這項政策希望在育兒初期為家庭減輕經濟壓力的用意。然而，現實卻極其諷刺：這筆原本為新生命而設的公共資源，最終並未用在孩子身上，而是全數填補了外傭中介制度失效所造成的損失。當生育獎勵最終流向制度漏洞，而非家庭與育兒本身，其政策效果，實質上已被抵消。這正是我寫這封公開信的原因。

我和丈夫曾帶著孩子在多國考察，認真比較哪裡最適合養育孩子。最終，我們選擇回到香港。其中一個重要因素是香港的外傭制度能有效減輕繁重的家務與育兒壓力，相比全球其它地區能讓家庭生活品質更高。一直以來，我認為外傭制度是香港的一種「軟實力」—— 能吸引具備一定經濟與教育基礎的家庭來港落戶，有助於香港的人才與人口結構發展。

正因如此，我們從未預料，這個吸引我們回流的體制，卻讓家庭受到一次沉重的打擊，也暴露出一個長期存在、卻極少被正視的社會問題。

外傭中介行業正逐漸形成一個高收費、低責任、缺乏問責機制的異常市場，其核心不公在於：風險主要由家庭承擔，信息和流程控制權卻掌握在幾乎無需承擔後果的一方。家庭在菲傭抵港前便需要支付高額中介費，而中介服務的內容、標準與責任邊界，均由中介單方面擬定合約文本；家庭幾乎不具任何議價能力，只能在一個缺乏任何實質規範且無透明度的市場中被動接受。一旦配對失敗，相關的時間與金錢成本，幾乎全數由家庭自行承擔。

更值得注意的是，在現行制度下，家庭所需承擔的責任範圍，往往已超出任何成熟風險管理市場的常態——普通家庭被要求在缺乏任何系統性保護的情況下，承受即使大型保險公司或企業，在沒有風險上限、等待期或分攤機制下，亦不會接受的承保責任。這已不再是個別不幸，而是風險分配制度本身出現了偏差。

另一個同樣根本的結構性問題，在於現行制度允許中介在過程中作出帶有權威暗示的描述，卻缺乏任何可供僱主驗證的制度性機制。在外傭中介市場中，僱主幾乎無法查閱中介的過往紀錄，包括是否曾被投訴、是否涉及嚴重爭議，相關資訊既不透明，亦缺乏統一、可查驗的渠道。

更重要的是，外傭是極其特殊的僱傭形態。對大多數家庭而言，最關鍵的並非學歷或技術，而是誠實、可靠、精神穩定，以及是否適合長期進入家庭生活空間並接觸兒童；而這些特質，恰恰最難量化。在缺乏監管機制的情況下，市場默許中介在履歷與推介中，反覆使用「誠實」、「可靠」、「人品良好」等本質上無法驗證的描述作為推銷要素；然而，一旦結果與描述出現重大落差，這些陳述卻被視為不需承擔後果的銷售語言。這在監管真空下被縱容的話術自由，使家庭在缺乏驗證能力的情況下，被迫承擔高度不對稱的決策風險。

這種現實對正處於懷孕、產後或幼兒成長關鍵階段的家庭尤其殘酷。對外傭而言，這是一份可以重新再找的工作；對家庭而言，一次僱傭失敗可直接影響一段無法重來的人生階段。尤其是，在家庭產生合理疑慮時，制度仍要求其繼續承擔風險，否則便承受經濟損失，這已無關勞工權益，而是對選擇保護家庭者的懲罰。

從監管一致性的角度來看，矛盾更為明顯。在證券、保險、房地產等涉及長期風險與資訊不對稱的市場中，銷售行為受到高度規範，並設有程序性保障。外傭僱傭，對一個家庭是一份為期兩年的承諾，累計支出達十多萬港幣，並伴隨持續的醫療、食宿及其他法定責任，更涉及不可逆的家庭安全風險。在任何成熟市場中，凡涉及如此金額、期限及資訊不對稱的長期決策，相關銷售與行為，均屬高度受監管。然而此類措施在外傭僱傭市場為零。

另外我想強調，這封信並非在質疑中介的價值。相反，在一個建立於雙職家庭經濟基礎之上的城市，外傭是許多家庭生活中的重要支援，並支持本地女性持續參與勞動市場。中介協助家庭與勞工在不同文化背景下建立理解，促成有意義的就業機會，其所提供的服務在維繫社會正常運作方面發揮着關鍵作用。正因為這個角色如此重要，這套制度才更值得被完善——為每一個託付家門的家庭，也為每一位懷着信任遠道而來的勞工。

我真誠希望政府能從整體治理與人口政策的角度，正視上述結構性失衡，並重新檢視外傭制度的責任結構與監管設計，讓香港在支持家庭與養育下一代方面，能持續成為一個值得信任、宜居的城市。

一個熱愛香港的普通媽媽

A Structural Imbalance and Regulatory Blind Spot affecting nearly one in ten hong kong households

Dear Chief Executive,

I would first like to express my gratitude to the Government for the HKD 20,000 Newborn Baby Bonus distributed in the Year of the Dragon. As one of the beneficiary families, I appreciate the policy’s intention to ease the financial pressure faced by families during the early stages of child-rearing.

However, the reality has been deeply ironic. Resources originally intended to support new life were ultimately not spent on children at all, but instead almost entirely absorbed by the costs arising from failures within the domestic helper agency system. When a pro-natal incentive ends up filling institutional loopholes rather than supporting families, it has failed to achieve its intended policy purpose. This is the reason I am writing this open letter.

My husband and I spent a year travelling around the world with our young children, carefully evaluating where would be the ideal place to raise our family. In the end, we chose to return to Hong Kong. One of the key reasons was that Hong Kong’s domestic helper system can genuinely reduce the burden of household and childcare responsibilities, allowing family life to function in an orderly and sustainable way. I have long regarded this system as one of Hong Kong’s forms of soft power — a structural advantage that attracts families with financial capacity, educational background, and a willingness to have children, thereby contributing positively to the city’s talent pool and demographic structure.

For this very reason, we never expected that the same system which drew us back would instead cause real harm to our family, while also exposing a long-standing social problem that has rarely been confronted directly.

The domestic helper agency sector has gradually evolved into an abnormal market characterised by high fees, low responsibility, and a lack of accountability. Its core inequity lies in the fact that risk is primarily borne by families, while information and procedural control remain in the hands of parties who face little or no consequence when things go wrong. Families are required to pay substantial agency fees before a domestic helper even arrives, while the scope, standards, and boundaries of agency responsibility are unilaterally set out in contracts drafted by the agencies themselves. Families have virtually no bargaining power, and are left to passively accept these terms within a market that lacks any meaningful regulatory standards or transparency. When a placement fails, the resulting time loss and financial costs are almost entirely absorbed by the family alone.

More concerning still is that, under the current framework, the scope of responsibility placed on families often exceeds what would be considered normal in any mature risk-management market — including risks that even large insurance companies and corporations would not assume without caps, waiting periods, or risk-sharing mechanisms. When an ordinary family is required to bear such long-term, irreversible, and highly asymmetrical risk in the absence of any systemic safeguards, the issue is no longer one of individual misfortune, but of fundamentally flawed risk allocation.

Another equally fundamental structural issue is that existing regulation allows agencies to make representations carrying implicit authority during the sales and matching process, while offering employers no institutional means of verification. Families have little to no access to an agency’s past record — including whether complaints have been filed or serious disputes have occurred.

More importantly, domestic helper is an exceptionally unique form of labour arrangement. For most families, the decisive factors are not academic qualifications or technical skills, but honesty, reliability, mental stability, and suitability for long-term integration into a family’s private household and childcare environment. These qualities are inherently difficult to quantify or verify. In the absence of regulatory mechanisms, the market effectively permits agencies to repeatedly promote qualities such as “honest”, “reliable”, or “of good character” as sales points, while treating any serious mismatch between these representations and reality as consequence-free sales language. This form of rhetoric freedom created by a regulatory vacuum shifts significant risk onto families who have no means to independently verify information.

Such an arrangement is particularly harsh for families in pregnancy, postpartum recovery, or early childhood stages. A failed employment, for a helper could mean another job, yet for a family, this could directly impact an irreplaceable phase of life. When families raise reasonable concerns but are still required by the system to continue bearing risk — or face financial penalties — this is no longer about protecting labour rights, but about penalising families for trying to protect their own.

From the perspective of regulatory oversight, the contradiction is stark. In sectors such as securities, insurance, and real estate — all involving long-term risk and information asymmetry — sales practices are subject to strict regulation and procedural safeguards. Yet for families, domestic helper employment is a two-year commitment involving cumulative costs of over HKD 120,000, ongoing medical and living obligations, and considerable safety implications within the home. In any mature market, arrangements of this scale and consequence would be subject to clear and robust regulation. Yet no comparable safeguards exist in the domestic helper employment market.

It must be emphasised that this letter is not intended to question the value of agencies. On the contrary, agencies play a vital role in the functioning of a city built on a dual-income economy, where domestic helpers are an essential pillar of everyday life, supporting family wellbeing and women’s participation in the labour market. Acting as a bridge between two cultures, agencies help align expectations between families and workers, enabling meaningful employment and functioning households. It is precisely because this work is so valuable. A system of such importance deserves to be made better — for every family who opens their home, and every worker who travels far, in trust.

I sincerely hope that the Government will, from the perspective of overall governance and population policy, confront these structural imbalances and undertake a comprehensive review of the framework and regulatory design of the domestic helper system, so that Hong Kong can continue to be a place where families can thrive.

An Ordinary Mother of Three