this is a form of discrimination against foreign domestic helpers (who are almost all Southeast Asian); this limitation is not enforced for other foreign workers. The two-week rule has been condemned by two United Nations committees: the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. According to human-rights groups, the two-week rule may pressure workers to remain with abusive employers. In 2005, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights urged the government to "review the existing 'two-week rule' ... and to improv[e] the legal protection and benefits for foreign domestic workers so that they are in line with those afforded to local workers, particularly with regard to wages and retirement benefits." The following year, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women called on the government to "repeal the 'two-week rule' and to implement a more flexible policy regarding foreign domestic workers. It also calls upon the state party to strengthen its control of employment agencies and to provide migrant workers with easily accessible avenues of redress against abuse by employers and permit them to stay in the country while seeking redress." The two-week and live-in rules were criticised by the United Nations Human Rights Committee in 2013. Abuse by employers Although the Hong Kong government has enacted legislation which nominally protects migrant workers, recourse is time-consuming and the costs considerable. The legal process can take up to 15 months to reach the District Court or Labour Tribunal, during which workers have no income. Welfare groups have expressed concerns about the treatment of this segment of the Hong Kong workforce, and the 2014 Erwiana Sulistyaningsih abuse case (which attracted international news headlines) focused on the plight of foreign workers in the territory. Thousands took to the streets, demanding justice for Sulistyaningsih. Although the government calls her case an isolated one, welfare groups say that many workers are victims of "modern-day slavery" and abuse by employers. Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor reported that a substantial percentage of workers are mistreated by their employers; of 2,500 workers interviewed, at least 25 percent said they had experienced violations of their contract (including pay less than the MAW and being denied their mandatory weekly day of rest and statutory holidays). More than 25 percent had also experienced physical and verbal abuse, including a "significant incidence" of sexual abuse. According to Caritas