Bedtime stories of Hong Kong’s helpers by Marcelo Duhalde

Hong Kong is a city well known for its housing and space scarcity crisis affecting all its residents. But for the migrant domestic helpers living there, their socioeconomic and citizenship status add another layer to their living accommodation dilemma, where some of them are made to sleep in storage rooms, living rooms, corridors, and other unsuitable places inside the employer’s house.

We conducted interviews with some affected domestic helpers and collected photos and videos of their condition for our visual reference. Inspired by children-book-illustrations, we produce infographics describing the helpers’ sleeping space. These infographics are showcased alongside some personal stories from the helpers’ point of view, arranged in three parts of continuous storytelling formats.

All the supporting information surrounding the situation is then visualised based on data gathered from NGO survey, workers union, symposium, published studies, and also conducting investigative reporting.

Illustrated storytelling and data-viz are inseparable elements in this piece because we attempt to explain that the harsh living condition of the helpers in Hong Kong is constructed upon a systemic issue, yet each helper’s experience is unique and different from each other. The combination of the two practices is the way for us to sympathetically produce a structural human story while still respecting the voices and identity of the marginalised.