Law student Tracy Lee's social justice fellowship in Hong Kong focused on supporting migrant workers (FILE/University of Windsor)
By Kate Hargreaves
For Windsor Law student Tracy Lee, a career in law is about more than practising in a courtroom or corporate office.
“There’s more to law than just corporate work,” she says.
Through Windsor Law's Social Justice Fellowship program, Lee spent 10 weeks in Hong Kong advocating for the rights of migrant domestic workers and exploring how the law can help bring about systemic change.
"For over 20 years, Windsor Law's Social Justice Fellowship program has been giving students opportunities to contribute positively to people's lives while developing the knowledge, skills and networks that cause lawyers need to advance dignity and equality in today's fractured world," says Windsor Law Dean Reem Bahdi.
Working with the non-governmental organization HELP for Domestic Workers, Lee gained hands-on experience in legal advocacy alongside lawyers, social workers, journalists and other professionals.
The organization helps domestic workers and employers understand their legal rights and responsibilities.
Lee says she has always been interested in social justice, an interest that led her to pursue the combined juris doctor/master of social work (JD/MSW) program at Windsor Law.
With family ties to Hong Kong and previous experience travelling there, Lee was familiar with Cantonese and the city. During earlier visits, she had also become aware of the challenges facing migrant domestic workers.
“Migrant domestic workers typically come from the global south,” Lee explains. “The most common countries are the Philippines, Indonesia and India, focusing on the Nepalese population of India.”
Lee notes that migrant domestic workers' visas are tied to their employers and they are generally required to live in their employers' homes. Their responsibilities can include housekeeping, child care and caring for older adults.
Although employment regulations provide for time off and other protections, Lee says employers are not always held accountable when workers' rights are violated.
“There’s a lot of misconstrued information because it’s such a deeply embedded workforce that has gone on for many generations,” Lee says.
One of the issues that surprised Lee was the restriction on legal representation in Hong Kong's labour tribunals, where workers may have to navigate disputes without a lawyer.
“I found that to be an access to justice issue,” she says.
The discovery prompted her to research the issue further, with the goal of contributing to systemic change.
Lee also worked one-on-one with clients, conducting intakes, undertaking legal research, observing court proceedings and assisting with casework on behalf of the NGO.
“I really tried to immerse myself in everything they do,” she explains.
“They do a lot of community work, legal education programs, financial education, so I tried to go to as many as I could because it also teaches you about the skills domestic workers are looking for and how to support them.”
Lee also drew on her experience as a child and youth therapist before enrolling in the JD/MSW program.
She applied her therapeutic background to help develop an educational program for domestic workers caring for Hong Kong's aging population.
The fellowship reinforced Lee's interest in combining law and social work to pursue policy reform and systemic change.
“I learned a lot about what it means to be a lawyer in the real world, what it means to be a lawyer in a different country,” she says.
“I got a lot of whiplash going from Canadian legal systems to Hong Kong legal systems, but because it’s common law at the end of the day, there are a lot of transferable skills there.”
With English used in Hong Kong's legal proceedings, Lee hopes more Windsor Law students will have the opportunity to work with HELP for Domestic Workers.
“It's accessible, it’s common law, you can transfer a lot that you know from Windsor,” she says. “So I really hope that the relationship continues.”