Melody LI ORNELLAS
Hong Kong-Mainland Couples’ Reproductive Rights:
Initial Findings and Implications
20 January, 2012
 |
| Leah Cheung, Dr. Ho Sik-ying, Dr. Sealing Cheng, Dr. Nicole Constable, Melody Li Ornellas & Doris Lee |
One of the most debated topics in Hong Kong public
discourse is that of Mainland Chinese women giving birth in China. There is a
perception that the growing number of mainland women giving birth in Hong Kong
is one of the biggest problems facing public health. What if these mainland
women are married to Hong Kong men? On January 20th, Pittsburgh
University PhD Candidate Melody Li Ornellas gave a seminar on this topic based
on her initial research findings. The talk focussed on Ornellas’s research on the
experiences of Mainland Chinese women married to Hong Kong men, who are
labelled as “visiting” wives, as they are not yet permanent residents of Hong
Kong, and their experiences with giving birth in Hong Kong. Despite having Hong
Kong husbands, these women are not permanent residents of Hong Kong, and are
therefore not eligible for priority treatment from public hospitals.
Ornellas shed light on the historical background
that lead to the policy problem with the landmark decision in 2001 to allow
children born in Hong Kong to mainland mothers to be entitled to citizenship in
Hong Kong. Ornellas also outlined policy measures designed to block the access
of mainland women to obstetric health services such as the different costs of
obtaining obstetric health services $100 for Hong Kong women or women married
to public servants and $39,000 for the rest. This difference in the cost is a
product of policy to discourage mainland women from giving birth in Hong Kong.
The presentation also covered the tactics that these mainland women use to
secure hospital beds to give birth, in the face of a policy that blocks their access.
These tactics include the use of agents to gate-rushing (arriving at the
hospital in labor), to negotiating with an occasionally hostile public health
system.
Ornellas successfully gave voice to the
difficulties and frustrations that these women and their husbands and in-laws
face in Hong Kong using the cases of three of her informants she illustrated
various difficulties. These include the poor treatment that these women receive
at the hands of public health officials in Hong Kong, which treats them with
contempt and the rejection of cases of high risk pregnancies such as having
twins by the public health system. Ornellas successfully ties her ethnographic
data to the tactics used by these women in the face of challenges that they
face with the case of a couple that were not permitted to give birth in the
mainland because of reproductive controls of the there. In such cases the women
have little choice other than to “gate-rush” Hong Kong hospitals to give birth.
Ornellas contextualises their experience within the
hierarchy of obstetric health policy in Hong Kong with the top tier consisting
of affluent Hong Kong and Mainland women who could afford the best care in
private hospitals. The second tier consists of ordinary Hong Kong women
(including those married to Mainland Chinese men), migrant wives and mainland
wives married to Hong Kong civil servants. Mainland wives married to Hong Kong
men, who have not yet obtained permanent residence, are in the third tier, with
risky pregnancies in the bottom.
The seminar concluded with a vigorous discussion
during the Q and A session about the factors that have lead to the difficulties
that these women and their in laws face in Hong Kong. Points were raised about
the issue of the discrimination faced by Mainland Chinese people in Hong Kong
and how it has shaped government policy towards Mainland Chinese women giving
birth in Hong Kong, the strain on the public health budget in Hong Kong. Ornellas’s
talk showed the importance of the role of anthropology in giving voice to those
who struggle to be heard in public discourse. In doing so, she has shown that
anthropology has a strong role to play in public policy debates.
Leo Pang, M.Phil Candidate
email.leopang[AT]gmail.com
Leo Pang, M.Phil Candidate
email.leopang[AT]gmail.com
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