This week’s topic in focus discusses the challenges of low and semi-skilled transient migrant workers in Singapore. These foreign migrant workers, who mainly come from South Asian countries like Bangladesh and India, are highly visible in our daily lives. They can be seen toiling away under the sun, or digging underground to build up our city’s infrastructures. Yet, they are a vulnerable group with many unmet challenges.
Many of them left their countries to work in Singapore in search of a better livelihood to support their families back at home. It is a common misconception that these workers are poor and uneducated, because they are usually from middle-class families who can afford the agent fees to travel out of the country to work. There are just not enough jobs in their country, even for the educated.
Challenges faced by workers
However, their lives are not necessarily better off while working here. Away from their families, and working in not-so-comfortable environments, these workers also face high risks of injuries. Although they are protected by employment laws, they are not protected enough from tyrant employers. Some of the situations they face include employers not paying them on time, or facing threats of deportation after they get injured at work. NGOs continue to receive cases of workers who are treated poorly. A study on migrant workers gave insights into some of the welfare issues faced by the workers which result in psychological distress. (Read: full study report)
There are also many cases of doctors certifying workers fit to work after suffering from injuries. Some doctors would advise them to go back to work unless they want to be forcefully repatriated by their employer. NGOs focusing on migrant worker rights commonly receive cases of workers given inadequate medical leave and suspect that these doctors are doing so to help employers avoid reporting workplace injuries. This would not only affect the workers’ chances of recuperation, but also have financial repercussions.
Community solutions
A couple of organisations focus on migrant worker rights. Migrant Workers Centre saw an increase in the number of workers helped, and funding given out as financial assistance, as workers come forward to seek help when disputes arise.
As they also experience feeling isolated and homesick, some migrants have creatively expressed their stories through poetry. An annual event, the Migrant Worker Poetry Competition, brings together talented workers to share their work to a mix of audience. Their performances challenge stereotypes and audiences feedback that they gain a deeper appreciation for the difficulties these workers face on a daily basis.
These activities and initiatives are organised in hopes of making lives of migrant workers a little more enjoyable, and meet their human needs of social connection in a foreign land.
Questions for further personal evaluation:
- Have you had personal encounters or interactions with migrant workers? How did you feel about these experiences?
- Do you think we need to improve the way we treat them?
Useful vocabulary:
- ‘pensive’: engaged in, involving, or reflecting deep or serious thought
- ‘culminated’: reached a climax or point of highest development
- ‘repatriation’: the return of someone to their own country
Here are more related articles for further reading:
- Channel NewsAsia: Singaporean families invite foreign workers into their homes for meals, and get to understand them at a personal level
“They learnt more about the struggles that migrant workers face in Singapore – but also found admiration for the volunteer work the men did, and “their dedication to improve themselves in spite of the limited free time they have”.
By having a safe and comfortable space, it really allowed us to speak with them as equals.
“And we were able to relate with one another over many common experiences, despite being so seemingly different,” added Mr Yeo.
To facilitate the home visits at short notice, CNA Insider tied up with SDI Academy and the IYC, which was organising its fourth Singaporean Muslims for Eid initiative. The latter aims to involve different groups – like migrant workers and non-Muslims – in the Eid celebrations.
IYC co-founder Ms Noor Mastura said she hoped that people’s negative stereotypes of each other would be “shattered through their interactions over food and culture”. She also hoped participants would “become ambassadors to their own communities of what they learnt”.”
- Channel NewsAsia: This commentary discusses the appropriateness in the way we treat foreign domestic workers, another vulnerable group who left their home countries to make a living here.
“One possible explanation for this kind of treatment is that some employers think of their FDWs as robots who do not need to eat, sleep, or even get paid.
There is a case currently underway in which a 50-year-old Singaporean employer has pleaded guilty to five charges of maid abuse, including making her FDW work from 4am to 11pm every day with no rest days, and limiting her food intake to only lunch and dinner twice or thrice a week.
In their October 2017 shadow report on Singapore to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, local non-governmental organisations HOME and TWC2 reported that “as many as eight in 10 domestic workers who sought help from HOME do not get enough food.”
These workers claimed that they were only permitted to eat instant noodles or bread, or leftovers. Almost all said that they were not allowed to eat fruit which was seen as a luxury they did not deserve.
…
This is a cause for concern considering how many migrant workers we have in Singapore, and the message that their poor treatment sends to the next generation of Singaporeans about issues of social class, ethnicity, gender, and global citizenship.
So how should we treat FDWs?
How about treating them as responsible adults who perform tasks that few Singaporeans want to do?”
Picture credits:https://pixabay.com/photos/migrant-workers-street-photography-1358036/