When? March 3, 2023

Where? The Sky Lounge at The Upper House

Who? Manisha Wijesinghe, Alicia Lui and Kay McArdle

Here’s what you missed:

On March 3, Tatler and the Upper House hosted the latest edition of House Stories, a monthly panel series at the hotel’s Sky Lounge. This edition of the series, moderated by Tatler’s director of VIP content and communications Tara Sobti, took place just ahead of International Women’s Day on March 8 and dived into the work of three women who have been championing the progress in Hong Kong for years.

The panel featured the lawyer and founder of Equal Justice Kay McArdle, who is on a mission to close Hong Kong’s justice poverty gap and ensure that disadvantaged people facing legal problems get the help they need; Manisha Wijesinghe, the executive director of Help for Domestic Workers, whose charity seeks to empower migrant domestic workers through crisis response services, access to justice, fair and equal treatment and education; and Alicia Lui, founder of Women In Sports Empowered (Wise), who engages women and girls in sport as a means to grow and support both physical and mental health.

The three panellists are no strangers to Front & Female: in 2022, they were the recipients of Tatler’s inaugural Front & Female Awards, identified by an expert voting committee comprised of some of the most influential women in Hong Kong.

Each speaker explored the importance of their work and why equal opportunities for women matter. “I had a father who regarded me and my brothers as absolute equals,” said McArdle. Combined with her time at school—where she was taught by female lecturers who had “achieved extraordinary things”—it left “quite an imprint”. Giving people the information and tools they need to make informed decisions allow them to gain agency over their lives, she added—something that her award-winning online resource centre Pregnant @ Work, which offers free legal advice for pregnant and breastfeeding workers, looks to address. “I remember a case where a husband had forged his wife’s signature to get a divorce. She couldn’t find information in her language that she could access and understand. It impacted her ability to live in Hong Kong and affected her children’s education,” she said. “[The law is] online, but I challenge you to look for legal information that is articulated in your preferred first language and distilled in a way that makes sense.”

Migrant domestic workers are particularly affected by a lack of access to information—and are faced with a unique set of circumstances that pose even more difficult challenges and creates more vulnerability, said Wijesinghe. “Most foreign domestic workers don’t know what their rights are. What if they get a bad employer? They get their holiday on a Sunday—how many government departments and private companies are open then? The one day they have off, they don’t have access to support.” Wijesinghe’s work aims to support and empower domestic workers, so that they can be catalysts for the empowerment of others. The goal is to one day eradicate the problem: “We don’t want [our company] to have to exist forever.” 

As for Lui, inspiring other women was a gradual process—though she also faced her fair share of stereotyping. “When I first started captaining my Ultimate Frisbee team, I was perceived differently to my male counterparts. People always assumed I wasn’t the captain—they thought the men were,” she said. “It was partly my fault—I would say I wasn’t good at strategy, and that the men should do it. I took on more of the emotional support.” Sport can generate self-belief and understanding, she added, and with Wise, she hopes to empower women to “know that they are strong, powerful, beautiful and that they can achieve anything they want for themselves.”

With the difficult subjects tackled at work, having a sense of humour has been a key asset, said Wijesinghe: “[Hong Kong’s migrant domestic workers] are always laughing and smiling on their days off. We should be learning from them and trying to find the positives in every situation.” She added that supporting our city’s migrant domestic workers is, in essence, supporting Hong Kong: “They are the ones helping make our homes comfortable,  making sure we have a hot meal on the table, getting us into our board rooms and into university—it’s important that we keep them healthy and empowered.”

McArdle’s calls to the audience to speak up when they see injustice summed it up best. “If you see someone whose voice isn’t heard at the table, promote that person, sponsor that person—and make it your job to mentor them.”