“It’s not my business. He can do what he wants, that’s his problem. And anyway, God can see.”
That’s what her neighbour said when 19-year-old Muawanatul Chasanah, an Indonesian domestic worker, died at the hands of her employer two decades ago.
By the time her employer dealt the fatal blows that would perforate her small intestine, Chasanah had been starved down to 36kg, burnt with cigarettes, scalded with boiling water, caned, punched, and kicked. She finally died a painful death when gastric juices leaked into her abdominal cavity.
In reaction to the cruelty and callousness that allowed this tragedy to happen, a group of civil society activists formed an ad-hoc group called The Working Committee 2. In 2004, the organization was re-invented as Transient Workers Count Too, and broadened its scope of advocacy to include both male and female workers.
Since then, TWC2 has continued to witness the slew of abuses that migrant workers face – and to promote fair treatment for migrant workers.
20 years on, how have the lives of migrant workers in Singapore changed?
As TWC2 marks our 20th anniversary of tireless service and unwavering advocacy for migrant workers, this is the question that we consider.
Singapore’s migrant worker landscape has, in some ways, shifted dramatically over the years. In other ways, maybe too little has changed. Through our anniversary video series, we invite you to join us as we reflect on our journey of two decades, from the injustices we’ve seen, to the work that lies ahead.
Over the years, we have continued to be guided by how migrant workers see their situation. Their key concerns remain very much the same. As John and Noor explain, female domestic workers continue to face isolation and exhaustion at their jobs. There is still a need for better regulations, including uninterrupted 24-hour rest for foreign domestic workers.
Another death
Almost to the day we marked our twentieth anniversary (18 August 2024), we sadly learned of another migrant domestic worker who died. It is a developing story so, as of now, we cannot confidently go into the details nor reveal her identity.
What we know from another domestic worker who used to work for the same family is that one family member was abusive (though we don’t know if this was also experienced by the worker who died). We have seen photographs of the late worker when she began working and later; she looked cheerful and healthy in in the first picture, almost skin and bones in the second. One of TWC2’s founding members even met her maybe a month earlier at a convenience store trying to buy some bread, but she didn’t have enough money on her to complete the purchase, and our member then gave her the amount she needed. He noticed that she was very thin.
Right about our 20th anniversary date, we learned that she had died from tuberculosis.
TB is an eminently treatable disease, but of course, it needs to be detected. Immediately, one asks: what happened here? It’s too early to say, but one life lost is one too many.
Wage theft and low wages remain problems for workers in the non-domestic sectors, many of whom have migrated in order to support their families back home. As Mizue, Lucas and Sarah explain, there are observable gaps in law and enforcement around migrant workers’ salaries. Without job mobility, workers have little bargaining power and the threat of repatriation hangs over their head. Furthermore, even as the cost of living has climbed, their wages have stagnated. As Jabez and Christine discuss in their interviews, this cheap labour strategy has a negative impact on Singapore in the long-term too. It is something we have to tackle.
Another priority for these workers is high recruitment fees. The recruitment networks from our source countries, especially those in South Asia, continue to be monopolised by avaricious agents. The crushing debt they accrue leaves them vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. Our General Manager Ethan, and two case officers David and Alfiyan, explain why Singapore should start recruiting migrant workers through a centralized jobs portal.
Injured workers continue to face changing barriers in their access to medical care. With the removal of medical subsidies for migrant workers in 2007, workplace injury insurance plays a significant role in treating injured workers. However, as Debbie and Aryan show, employers remain the gatekeepers, and accessing the insurance coverage remains difficult from the worker’s perspective.
Overall, there is a tendency to view low-skilled labour as an economic commodity, which leads to a policy framework that does not give sufficient weight to the impact on and aspirations of individuals involved. Sharon and Marcel discuss the significant lack of worklife balance for many migrant workers, and the need to provide accessible leisure for such a significant portion of Singapore’s workforce.
There is also a subconscious tendency to see low-wage foreigners through the lens of security, resulting in harsher policies than warranted. Alex and Midzi reflect on the Little India riots and Covid-19 pandemic, highlighting the distance we have yet to travel to be truly inclusive of our migrant workers.
“When we started twenty years ago, we didn’t really expect to be keeping going this long,” says John Gee, one of the founder members of Transient Workers Count Too. “We hoped, though, that we would be able to work ourselves out of existence, and it’s my hope that we won’t be here in twenty years’ time talking about the same things.”
Here’s to the next 20 years of change.