Hong Kong, their Asian Migrant Worker Social Service Project helpline received over four thousand calls from workers and 53 workers received assistance to remain in Hong Kong and pursue their claims. According to Belthune House executive director Adwina Antonio, the shelter dealt with 7,000 cases of alleged abuse in the first three-quarters of 2013 (compared with 3,000 for all of 2012). Contributing factors include "artificially low wages" and the live-in requirement. Many workers accumulate six to twelve months' debt to intermediaries for commissions, although these commissions are limited by law to 10 percent of the first month's pay. The ease with which foreign workers may be deported and the difficulty of finding employment abroad deters them from reporting violations or discrimination. Live-in requirement Since workers are required to live with their employers, they are vulnerable to working long hours; according to Amnesty International and welfare groups, some workers routinely work 16 to 18 hours a day and have no escape from abuse. In addition, workers are given a curfew. The dynamic between the worker and employer depends on how the employer views themselves and how they perceive workers. In many homes where the employer is Chinese, the foreign helper tends to be seen as socially inferior. As for the living conditions of the live-in requirement, it varies from a private room to a mat in the middle of the living room. The live-in requirement also creates difficulties between the employer and helper when forming public and private boundaries. Philippine government policy Filipino workers have protested Philippine government targeting of overseas Filipino workers, and a 1982 protest opposed Executive Order No. 857 (EO-857) implemented by Ferdinand Marcos. According to the order, overseas contract workers were required to remit 50 to 70 percent of their total earnings through authorised government channels only. Migrant-worker groups say that overseas Filipino workers must pay up to PHP150,000 ($3,400) in government and recruiting-agency fees before they can leave the country. In 2007, the Philippine government proposed a law requiring workers to submit to a "competency training and assessment program" which would cost them PHP10,000 to P15,000 (US$215 to US$320) – about half their average monthly salary (typically US$450). According to the Philippine Department of Labor and Employment, the policy would help protect domestic overseas workers from abuse by employers. Government agencies receive a total of about PHP21 billion ($470 million) a year from foreign workers in