Breaking the Cycle: How GirlCodeEmpowers Hong Kong’s DomesticWorkers
By Carrie He
Chinese International School
life is a daily struggle between eating today or tomorrow, often without access to education or
opportunity (Surya).
This is where GirlCode comes in.
A student-led service run by girls, for girls, we empower women through coding and tech skills.Through weekly Scratch and real-tech courses, our students gain independence and
confidence.
Although GirlCode assists anyone from primary school to adulthood, a main focus is our Sunday workshops for foreign migrant workers. Most domestic helpers in Hong Kong are women, and
their ethnic identity leads to stigmatization in the job market. This makes them vulnerable to
layoffs or economic shifts, since they depend on their sponsor for wage and housing. Losing a
job can mean no roof, no income, and limited options, as most non-low-income jobs require tech fluency. By teaching computing skills, GirlCode supports their daily lives and expands their career paths.
To understand why this matters, consider the over 370,000 foreign domestic workers in Hong
Kong—99 percent of whom are women (Staunton). On paper, protections exist: a minimum
monthly wage of HK$4,900 and a requirement for "suitable accommodation." But policy and
practice are very different. The live-in requirement means workers are on-call 24/7. One Filipina worker, Grace, was allocated her employer’s toilet as her private room. Another, Rosie, slept in a storage room or on a sofa for twelve years. Mirna’s employer measured her body to renovate a room just big enough to contain her (“1 in every”). These are not rare stories—they are
systemic failures.
Even when accommodation is not degrading, the psychological toll is immense. One worker
described being under camera surveillance, finding escape only in the corridor where no
cameras watched. Cleofa Jean Mendez-Sison, a qualified teacher from the Philippines working as a helper, put it bluntly: "I'm scared of being terminated. That's why, even if I know that something that they ask me is beyond my contract, I will do it. (Staunton)" This fear is caused by the "two-week rule", which dictates that if a contract is terminated, the worker has 14 days to find a new employer or leave Hong Kong permanently (“1 in every”). Two weeks to secure housing and legal status—often forcing rushed, exploitative arrangements.
Beyond the home, workers face ethnic stereotyping. A government-commissioned study found employers often prefer local Chinese applicants. One respondent recalled colleagues assuming she could not be a professional because "all Filipinas are domestic workers. (Jordan)"
The cycle of poverty here is not just about low wages—though at HK 4,900 in one of the world’s most expensive cities, wages are undeniably low. Debt traps workers before they even arrive: many pay two−thirds of their salary to recruitment agencies, leaving as little as HK1,600 per month for all other expenses (Staunton). Then comes the skills barrier. Many domestic workers are actually educated—teachers, nurses, graduates—but their foreign qualifications are rarely recognized in Hong Kong. Without local credentials or tech proficiency, even skilled workers are funnelled into elementary labor, trapped at the bottom of the job market.
Into this context, GirlCode steps in.
Every Sunday, we host workshops teaching coding through Scratch and real-tech credential
courses. But our curriculum extends far beyond syntax. We teach digital literacy—navigating job platforms, professional emailing, researching employers. We teach financial literacy and legal rights around wages and debt. And we teach confidence: the shift when a woman who has been told she is "just a helper" realizes she can build a website or design a digital portfolio.
Our impact is also about community and visibility. In a city where these women are often
invisible except when needed to clean or cook, our workshops offer a space where they are
students and creators first.
One Filipina participant told us that learning to code was the first time she had felt "like a
professional" since leaving her home country. Another used her GirlCode skills to develop her
online business further, making her more independent of her employer. These are small
victories. But small victories, accumulated, become structural change. When a domestic worker gains digital skills, she can search for better jobs, communicate with employers on her own terms, and build a financial cushion that makes termination less terrifying. When she gains confidence, she gains the ability to say no—to extra hours without pay, to degrading treatment.
I joined GirlCode thinking I would teach coding. I stayed because I learned something more
important: that the barrier between "us" and "them" is an illusion.
Before GirlCode, I understood domestic workers’ reality abstractly—as a statistic. But knowing is not the same as sitting beside a woman my mother’s age as she types her first one on words on the computer, watching her face light up with reclaimed pride.
I learned that poverty is not a character flaw. It is a collection of policies and biases that trap
people and then blame them for it. The women I have taught are among the most resilient,
brilliant people I have met. Computing on one level, is a technical skill. But in the context of
structural precarity, it becomes a way out. Proof that the cycle of poverty can be broken not by one grand intervention, but by one woman, one Sunday, one line of code at a time.
The 1 in 10 women living in fear cannot wait for policy to change. They need help now. They
need skills now. They need people who see them and believe in them now.
Works Cited:
Jordan, Lucy. "Consultancy Study on Considerations and Difficulties of Women in Choosing
Whether or Not to Work." Social Work and Social Administration,
%20English.pdf#37#19. Accessed 30 May 2026.
"1 in every 10 women in the world lives in extreme poverty." UN Women, 8 Mar. 2024,
world-lives-in-extreme-poverty#:~:text=1%20in%20every%2010%20women,extreme%2
0poverty%20%7C%20UN%20Women%20%E2%80%93%20Headquarters. Accessed 30
May 2026.
Staunton, Denis. "'I'm scared of being terminated': Domestic workers in Hong Kong vulnerable
to exploitation." Irish Times, 5 May 2025,
stic-workers-in-hong-kong-vulnerable-to-exploitation/. Accessed 30 May 2026.
Surya, Davies Christian. "Bedtime stories of Hong Kong's helpers." South China Morning Post,
12 Dec. 2024,
ries/index.html?src=article-launcher. Accessed 30 May 2026.
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