Going off at a tangent (since I think it is by now clear that the consensus is "No")...
I was pleased to see that the HK Government is getting a bit of a hard time at the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination - 75th Session with regard to its treatment of DHs. Their justification for the current "live in only" rule is (p11):Which is, of course, ridiculous, at least as far as non-Chinese-speaking expats are concerned, since the supply of local helpers speaking English (surely a requirement) is as close to zero as makes no difference.The mandatory live-in requirement remains in place for good policy reasons and necessary immigration control - FDHs are admitted to address the problem of shortage in local supply of live-in domestic helpersFDHs. If the nature of services required by the employer does not require the domestic helpers to live at the contractual address, the services can be readily taken up by local workforce. This is in line with the well-established policy that non-local people are admitted for employment only if there is confirmed shortage in the local labour. Therefore, to allow FDHs to live out would virtually defeat the purpose of importing full-time live-in domestic helpers.
Moreover, it is rather amusing to see that the bureaucrats concerned left the last set of "Track Changes" in the document they submitted to the UN, so that the parts in red in my quote, which were intended to be deleted, are still visible. It is worrying that right up until the last draft (when someone by the name of S.Ng with some idea of PR took it out) the justification for having helpers live in included "immigration control", which would, of course, be blatant racial discrimination since no-one else holding Employment Visas is required to live where their employer tells them.
I must say I am pleasantly surprised by the number of HK-based organisations who have made submissions to the UN Committee. Let's hope they have some success.