Trafficked to the city and forced to endure unpaid work, abuse, threats and hunger, this man sued the government. A decade after his ordeal began, he is still fighting for a change in the law that could help others like him
Z N had neither a passport nor an identity card for most of his life. He had never needed documents until a wealthy family from his village in Pakistan convinced him he could lead a better life in Hong Kong.
His mother opposed the idea, even if it was for a well-paid job. No one in their family had ventured overseas. After all, she argued, they had little money, but enough to put food on the table. “My parents told me not to go abroad. I did not listen to them,” Zn says, without taking his eyes off the ground.
Zn is only 34 but his forehead is like a wrinkled rug lying on sunburned skin. His round cheeks and lips rarely draw a smile. His face shows the effects of his move to Hong Kong, where he thought he would find a better future but where, instead, he lost his freedom. It is the city where he endured endless hours of unpaid work, physical abuse, threats, hunger and shame.
As the man at the centre of Hong Kong’s first judicial review on human trafficking, he hopes his case – which is still ongoing – will pressure the government into passing laws protecting victims like him .
There are more than 40 million people enduring modern slavery around the world, according to the International Labour Organisation. About 25 million are victims of forced labour. Experts say men are increasingly willing to identify themselves as victims.
Worldwide, the Asia-Pacific region accounts for 72 per cent of modern slavery victims who have been sexually exploited, and 64 per cent of forced labour cases. Every year, the use of forced labour in the private sector generates about US$150 billion in illegal profits.
Zn had known the family who convinced him to come to Hong Kong since he was a child running around barefoot in the streets of his farming village in the eastern province of Punjab.
“They offered me a job many times and I rejected it… I never had hopes to do different work because I am illiterate,” says Zn, who used to earn about 100 rupees a day (80 US cents) as a construction worker in Pakistan. “I kept being told that my life would change completely and that it would be much better… They kept asking why I was working so hard in construction when I could work in their mobile shop in Hong Kong.”
Zn eventually accepted the offer in 2006. The family who was going to hire him – known as being well-connected in Punjab, and with extensive business interests in Hong Kong – offered to help with the trip’s arrangements.
“I had not needed a Pakistani ID all my life. I did not have a passport either. They offered money to help me get those documents,” he says. “I refused it, because I could take care of my own documents. But that gesture left a very gentle impression of them. I thought they were kind-hearted.”
The sister of his future employer accompanied him on a flight from Pakistan to Hong Kong in 2007. He had never been to an airport. He recalls even needing help to buckle the seat belt on the plane.
“I was wearing flip flops and carrying two sets of fresh clothes in a plastic bag,” he says. “That was all I brought with me… I was very simple.”
Zn also had no idea he was being brought in on a domestic-worker visa, even though the nature of the job he was going to take was different. In Hong Kong, he thought he would earn between 40,000 to 50,000 rupees (US$320 to US$400) a month packing mobile phones.
THE ABUSE BEGINS
The day Zn arrived in the city, he was taken to his employer’s office in Tsim Sha Tsui, where he would work and sleep. There was no bed, just a folding mattress.
“I could not sleep the first night. I was worried about many things, my siblings, my parents, my pets… I was thinking about the last meal we had together,” he says.
The city seemed a confusing grid and he had a hard time distinguishing one building from another. “In my village there are houses, no buildings,” he says. “So when I came everything seemed very uniform to me – same taxis, buses… Everything looked alike. I felt I could easily get lost in Hong Kong.”
He hadn’t yet figured out the city when the abuse started – just three days after he arrived.
“I had never done this job before, so I didn’t know anything… My hands were shaking because I was afraid of touching the mobiles and breaking them,” he says. “I started being yelled at and beaten up for being slow.”
His duties involved checking mobile equipment, packing the phones in cardboard boxes, making sure the packages were in shape to be delivered and helping with the deliveries.
“I would memorise the buildings by their shape and colour, because I can’t read or count,” he says. “I would accept payments for [the phones, but] I never got a dollar for myself.
