The Indonesian consulate has slammed the Hong Kong government for stripping foreign domestic helpers of their holidays by insisting that they take repeated COVID-19 tests.

These helpers had been spending their precious weekly rest days to join long queues for the previous round of testing, which ended on Sunday, and their employers did not give them an alternative day off, the Indonesian Consulate General in Hong Kong told Apple Daily.

“Another [round of] compulsory testing will lead to another violation of their employment rights to have a weekly day off,” the foreign mission said.

It added that everyone in Hong Kong, regardless of profession, shared an equal responsibility to curb the pandemic. The government was implementing an unfair policy to retest only foreign domestic helpers within a short period of time, as their employers, who logically carried a similar risk by living in the same environment, were not subjected to obligatory testing, the consulate said.

On Tuesday, Chief Executive Carrie Lam responded to an outcry by reversing plans to make foreign domestic helpers receive vaccines when they applied for work visa renewals. However, she was adamant that they must be tested a second time by the end of the month.

A day later, Secretary for Labor and Welfare Law Chi-kwong said that the matter was, as described by the chief executive, a multilayered issue.

The government would consider legal issues and opinions from diplomats, Law told reporters after attending a legislative meeting on Wednesday. The labor minister also replied to questions on whether authorities had initially made a rushed decision to tie the visa renewals to mandatory testing, by asking the media to refer to Lam’s remarks.

Teresa Liu, chair of the Association of Hong Kong Manpower Agencies, told a talk show on Radio Television Hong Kong that she was relieved after the local government’s U-turn, as she was receiving many calls every day from employers asking about mandatory vaccination.

It was not easy to hire a helper due to a shortage of manpower, making employers stressful, Liu said. One employer even brought a helper to the association last week hoping to persuade the latter to get vaccinated. The helper could choose to leave the job, she said.

Liu agreed with the government’s latest arrangement to require a second round of tests, which she said was better as the period for testing was longer than the previous time. She suggested that the government increase the number of test centers and staffers on duty, especially on holidays, to avoid long queues.

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