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July 27, 2017

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Indonesian maids in Hong Kong ‘being radicalized’

Source: AFP | 00:01 UTC+8 July 27, 2017 | Print Edition

INDONESIAN maids working in Hong Kong are being radicalized by extremists from the Islamic State group, a security think tank said in a report yesterday.

Around 150,000 of the city’s army of domestic helpers are from Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country.

Against a backdrop of growing religious conservatism at home, a small number of militant maids has emerged, according to a report from the Jakarta-based Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC).

But rights activists and the Indonesian Muslim community in Hong Kong said they were unaware of radicals and fear that reported links with IS would breed unfair suspicion. 

The IPAC investigation described a “radical fringe” of around 45 Indonesian domestic helpers, who may have been attracted to militant circles by “the search for a sense of community in an unfamiliar environment.”

“Some of these women were drawn by jihadi boyfriends they met online,” said IPAC analyst Nava Nuraniyah. “But some joined ISIS as a path to empowerment.” 

A string of abuse cases has highlighted the exploitation of maids in Hong Kong by unscrupulous employment agencies which confiscate their passports, claim their wages and keep them in the dark about their rights.

But the IPAC report said ill treatment did not seem to have played a direct role in radicalization, although it had led to the establishment of an Islamic advocacy group to act as a kind of union.  

The war in Syria has fueled interest in militant groups as jihadi social media stoked sympathy for Sunni victims, the report said.

Hong Kong media has previously reported on IS supporters leafleting Indonesian domestic helpers as they gathered in public on their day off.

The Indonesian community in Hong Kong has tripled in the past 17 years, and religious teaching and prayer groups have grown alongside it.

But Indonesian migrant rights activist Eni Lestari said she was unaware of IS supporters among them.

“We are Muslim by religion and we organize a lot of Muslim activities ... we don’t do radicalization,” she said.

“I think it’s really unfair for the Indonesian domestic worker community to be labeled.”

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