Figure 10.20: Globalization: The “maid trade.” By 2009, about 3 million women, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka, were working as domestic servants across Asia. (A) Filipina housemaids and nannies in Hong Kong relax on blankets on their day off. The Philippine government mandates that they must have Sundays off, so many public areas in central Hong Kong are occupied on Sundays by small groups of women talking, trading goods, playing games, and packing up things to send home. (B) Map of the “maid trade,” showing the origins and destinations of the maids.
[Sources consulted: Joni Seager, The Penguin Atlas of Women in the World (New York: Penguin Books, 2003), p. 73, with updated information from the Migration Policy Institute, at http://www.migrationpolicy.org/regions/asia-and-pacific?qt-recent_program_activities=4#qt-recent_program_activities.]