你會不會默許制度漏洞造成家庭的常态風險？

I am a mother of three.

For the past two years, what should have been one of the most precious and irreplaceable periods of my life — my final pregnancy — turned into a prolonged nightmare, triggered by a dispute with a domestic helper agency.

From pregnancy to carrying my newborn into court, I navigated physical exhaustion, emotional strain, and ongoing legal proceedings at the same time. Our household lost essential support, daily life became chaotic, and my children’s wellbeing were directly affected. Through this experience, I came to understand that this was never just a service dispute — it was a family left to absorb the consequences of a system that failed to protect them.

In reality, no possible refund or compensation could make up for the cost I have already paid — in time, energy, and loss of a significant life event. What kept me going was never about money. It was the refusal to accept that after a family has borne all the risks, the assurances that shaped our decisions could be casually dismissed — without accountability or remorse.

I am simply wanted to know: in circumstances like these, what is fair?

WHEN TRUST IS SYSTEMATICALLY DISCLAIMED

Under the current framework, families are required to make decisions largely based on agency representations, yet those representations carry little to no meaningful legal consequence. Once a placement proceeds, agencies operate with minimal risk, while households bear the full fallout.

I was often told to “take the loss and move on.” But when families are repeatedly expected to absorb harm in silence, systems are never required to confront failure.

When “let it go” becomes the only option, the suffering of ordinary families are treated as collateral damage.

After two years, what I encountered was an experience widely recognised as secondary victimization, where those seeking fairness are harmed again by the very process meant to address their grievance.

I was repeatedly told that these issues were “not what the law cares about.” Ordinary families’ reasonable expectations were dismissed. I was told that expecting honesty from an agency was holding it to an unreasonably high standard, because its role was simply to facilitate a transaction.

I was left asking whether this is an unspoken system where insiders know how to protect themselves, while ordinary families bear the risks?

THE “COMMON SENSE” THAT SHOULD ALARM US ALL

Over the course of six hearings and three mediations, I repeatedly encountered analogies that were treated as self-evident：

“It’s like a fruit seller claiming apples guaranteed sweet—if you ate one and thought it was sour, should you expect a refund?”

“If a menu says shrimp wonton noodles and you found there was no shrimp, that’s false description - you report it to HK Customs, but refusing to pay would be “demanding a free lunch”

“Agencies are like car salesmen. They could not be expected to disclose problems, because that was too high moral standards.”

These analogies were presented as common sense.
And they all pointed to the same conclusion:

You chose to believe—therefore, the risk is yours to bear.

A NORMALISED FORM OF VICTIM-BLAMING

What unsettled me most was not that these views came from helper agencies, but that they were openly articulated at mediation tables and in courtrooms. This logic—openly accepted and repeatedly rationalised—mirrors a form of victim-blaming we already recognise in other contexts.

In discussions of sexual assault, victims are often asked:
“Were you not careful enough?”

Here, the same accusation is transferred onto families:
you trusted the agency—therefore, you are at fault.

Yet this logic fundamentally misunderstands the nature of employing a foreign domestic helper.

This is not a low-risk, easily verifiable consumer transaction. Families cannot trial, return, or independently verify a helper’s background. They make decisions under significant information asymmetry, with consequences that directly affect household safety, caregiving, and daily life.

Reducing such a decision to buying fruit or purchasing a car exposes how deeply the system underestimates the risks families are asked to carry —and how, when harm occurs, responsibility is quietly shifted back onto the most vulnerable party: the employer family.

WHY I CHOSE A PUBLIC INTEREST APPEAL

Over the course of two years of litigation, I have learned how to protect myself.

I now understand how to reduce risk and how to avoid falling into the same trap again.

But precisely because of that, I cannot choose to walk away in silence.

Because I have seen how the system operates in practice, repeatedly passing risk on to the next unprepared family.

For this reason, I chose to initiate Wonder Act — not for this one case alone.

Its purpose is to use the legal process to address long-ignored systemic issues, so that families in similar situations in the future have clear legal guidance to rely on.

I hope that the next family who walks into the Small Claims Tribunal will not be dismissed with these same analogies and assumptions.

I hope that when families seek institutional recourse, the law will recognise the real risks and asymmetries involved—rather than telling them to accept all consequences because they have “no legal basis.”

This appeal is not about changing one person’s outcome.

It is about refusing to allow these assumptions to stand unchallenged — because if they do, another innocent family will be harmed.

BUT THIS IS NOT A BATTLE ANY FAMILY CAN FIGHT ALONE

In seeking legal advice, I was told that bringing this matter before the Court of First Instance — where it can be examined within a rigorous legal framework — would require hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong dollars. This reality explains why so few employers ever challenge such outcomes: not because the issues are trivial, but because the system’s cost structure discourages scrutiny.

The application for appeal has now been submitted, and a decision on whether leave to appeal is granted is expected on 25 February 2026. If approved, the case will proceed formally in the High Court, and legal costs will follow. For this reason, I plan to launch a public-interest fundraising for legal fees once the outcome is confirmed. By that time, you may choose to support further with full information and consent.

This is not about personal gain.
It is about ensuring that deeply unfair legal signals are not silently accepted, replicated, and normalized as everyday risk for Hong Kong families.

Because the measure of justice in a society is not whether it punishes one wrongdoer, but whether—when faced with clear imbalance and risk spillover—
the system is willing to confront it,
and make the necessary corrections.

If members of the legal community recognize the public significance of this case and are willing to offer professional support or representation, I welcome you to contact me.

This is not something one person can take on alone.

But what it concerns has never been only about one family.