MANILA, Philippines—It was love that moved this American lawyer to fight for the rights of Filipino women traveling to Hong Kong.

In one of his letters to Philippine newspapers in October, Andrew Lee complained about the harrowing experience of his Filipino girlfriend who had flown to Hong Kong to meet him.

According to Lee, his 22-year-old girlfriend was strip-searched, interrogated and detained at the Hong Kong airport for 16 hours—not the first time such a thing had happened to a Filipino woman, he said.

“My girlfriend’s rights were violated,” said Lee, 46. “She and [three] other women were singled out because of their race.”

Lee received a number of e-mails after his letters were published. From his fellow Americans whose Filipino wives or friends had suffered the same fate, he learned what the problem was: Hong Kong immigration authorities had become wary of Filipino women flying to the former Crown Colony, ostensibly because some of them ended up in the flesh trade.

But this information merely succeeded in angering him further. He said that while his girlfriend had lived a difficult life as an orphan, she managed to complete a college degree through hard work and was definitely not a prostitute.

(The woman refused a request for an interview and asked that she not be named to protect her privacy.)

‘Gov’t should complain’

One of Lee’s letters, which the Philippine Daily Inquirer published in October, likewise drew the attention of Manuel Chua, a well-traveled businessman who heads the volunteer group Tulay Foundation. (The foundation also promotes the welfare of overseas Filipino workers.)

On the phone with the Inquirer early this month, Chua expressed concern about reports that many Filipino women were being detained at the Hong Kong airport and forcibly sent back.

He said the Department of Foreign Affairs “should do something to protect our people,” and that the government “should complain.”

Chua himself had done something: He sent a letter of protest to the Hong Kong immigration department.

He provided the Inquirer a copy of the department’s reply to his letter, translated from Chinese to English, where it admitted to have refused entry to Lee’s girlfriend but maintained that her rights were respected when she was detained.

Friendly people

In e-mail interviews with the Inquirer, Lee made it clear that he had nothing against the people of Hong Kong.

“I thought it was a beautiful city and location, and most of the people I met while I was there were very friendly,” he said. “It is only the Hong Kong immigration agents that abused my girlfriend that I have a problem with.”

According to Lee, officials of airlines flying between Manila and Hong Kong are aware of what is happening.

“The airlines are not the abusers, but they have knowledge of the abuse so they should have a duty to let the Philippine government know that this is going on,” he said, adding:

“The airlines need to be questioned, too.”

Waiting for hours

Per Lee’s account, he and his girlfriend met online more than a year ago. Because he was scheduled to fly to Hong Kong for a job, they agreed to meet there in October.

She was excited. She wanted to go to Disneyland.

“I regret having her meet me in Hong Kong,” Lee said. “I really feel responsible, and I feel bad that I wasn’t able to protect her.”

His flight from the United States was delayed for three hours because of a storm, and when he arrived at the Hong Kong airport, he could not find her.

“I was there waiting for her for hours, unaware she was being detained,” Lee said. “The immigration agents never bothered to find me even though I was in the baggage area for hours.”

Some Chinese airline agents later told him: “Is she traveling from the Philippines? She was probably detained by immigration.”

Finally, a young officer politely told him that she had been denied entry and would be sent back.

The couple subsequently met in Manila. And Lee became furious when he found out what his girlfriend had gone through.

Incommunicado

In his letter to Chua, which the latter also forwarded to the Inquirer, Lee said his girlfriend was “denied food for approximately 16 hours.”

“She was not allowed to contact anyone, not the Philippine Embassy, not friends or family. Her phone was taken from her,” he said. “She tried to eat a hamburger that she had previously purchased at the airport and that too was taken from her.”

But she was “determined not to cry while she was being strip-searched [by female immigration agents],” Lee said.

“She did her best to be brave and not show them any emotion, but she told me that inside she wanted to die,” he said. “She felt that her dignity had been taken away from her.”

In its reply to Chua, the Hong Kong immigration department said that before its officers made the decision to disallow entry to Lee’s girlfriend, “our staff tried to contact the traveler’s friend [to get] more information, but the traveler failed to offer her friend’s contact information.”

The department also said it respected her rights, including “using the telephone to contact the consul, lawyer or relatives” and “[having] a meal or drinking water.”

Racism

Three other Filipino women were detained, interrogated and strip-searched that day, Lee said, quoting his girlfriend. No women from other countries were subjected to the same treatment.

“I write this letter to let the Filipino people know of the racism and abuse being done by immigration agents at the Hong Kong International Airport to Filipino women,” Lee said in his letter published in the Inquirer.

In his letter to Chua, he said: “Filipinos should be outraged.”

Lee called on the Philippine government to do something to protect its female citizens.

He said he was grateful that people like Chua and others who had sent him letters were showing concern not only for his girlfriend but also for other Filipino women who experienced the same ordeal.