October 2025 will be the 60th anniversary of Singapore’s ratification of Convention 29 of the International Labour Organisation. This convention requires member states “to suppress the use of forced or compulsory labour in all its forms within the shortest possible period” – to cite the words of its Article 1.

Much has changed in Singapore’s labour market in these 60 years. Especially in the last 30 years, migrant labour has become an important part of our labour resources. In 2024, out of Singapore’s total labour force of 4.01 million persons, 37 percent (1.49 million) were foreigners (i.e. neither citizens nor permanent residents). A large majority of these working foreigners were in the Work Permit category, generally doing lower-skill jobs and earning lower salaries. Work Permit holders numbered 1.10 million, forming about 27 percent of Singapore’s total workforce.

This massive change in the labour landscape introduces new vulnerabilities in the area of employment standards, vulnerabilities that are not getting sufficient attention or counter-action by the State. This is likely because there is an ideological preference for taking a hands-off laissez-faire approach to private-sector relationships which, in the main, employment relationships are.

We discuss below the specific areas where questions can be raised whether Singapore is truly compliant with ILO Convention 29, in the context of migrant labour.

Although the aim of the Convention is expressed simply in Article 1 as the suppression of “forced or compulsory labour”, the ILO has over the years produced a lot of operational guidelines to help member States and other stakeholders realise this goal. A helpful and reader-friendly document is ILO Indicators of Forced Labour, which also gives examples of how real-life situations can manifest in these indicators. It lists:

  • Abuse of vulnerability
  • Deception
  • Restriction of movement
  • Isolation
  • Physical and sexual violence
  • Intimidation and threats
  • Retention of identity documents
  • Withholding of wages
  • Debt bondage
  • Abusive working and living conditions
  • Excessive overtime.

Article 25 of the Convention further says: “The illegal exaction of forced or compulsory labour shall be punishable as a penal offence, and it shall be an obligation on any Member ratifying this Convention to ensure that the penalties imposed by law are really adequate and are strictly enforced.” (Red text emphasised by TWC2.)

The helicopter view

In general, the text of Singapore’s legislation is up to scratch. Whilst nothing is ever perfect and improvements can always be made, in TWC2’s view, our legislation is not where the major problems lie.

Where Singapore tends to fall short is in enforcement. We have observed a poor rate of surveillance and follow-up enforcement. For example, in the Afterthoughts section of our article Crushed by six months’ notice period Part 2, we pointed out how despite TADM reporting over 8,000 cases of salary claims in 2024, there are generally only eight convictions under the law in a typical year. This is just 0.1 percent of the number of salary claims filed.

As for recruitment fees, TWC2 has recounted in article after article migrant workers’ reports of having to fork out thousands of dollars, quite often to someone in Singapore and even paid into a Singapore bank account. We find it almost impossible to believe that the Ministry of Manpower is unaware of this rampant reality (ministry officials read our website religiously), and yet we do not see broad-based action against this cancer.

The inaction gives the impression that Singapore’s approach to its obligations under Convention 29 goes no further than merely passing laws and hoping for the best.

When it comes to enforcement, cross-border recruitment is complicated by ambiguities of jurisdiction and difficulties in accessing evidence located offshore. However, we would point out that Article 25, despite its focus on ensuring that penalties imposed by law are enforced, is not the only response that State signatories to the Convention are to take. Article 1’s requirement is to “suppress the use of forced or compulsory labour in all its forms” is outcome-focussed, without limiting itself methods-wise. In short, legislation with its criminal justice approach should not be the only tool in the toolbox.

For cross-border situations, system change (more detail below) may work better. In this light, TWC2 is constantly disappointed. Not only is enforcement falling short, there seems to be a huge reluctance on the part of the Singapore government to exert itself to create system change that will prevent forced labour.

Zoomed-in view

Next, we look at three common features of the migrant worker experience and assess how these stack up against the forced-labour indicators set out by the International Labour Organisation.

Massive recruitment fees

In certain industry sectors and from certain source countries, Work Permit holders generally have to pay for their jobs. There are about 280,000 domestic workers and about 430,000 in the construction, marine and process (CMP) industries, recruited primarily from Indonesia, Philippines, India, Bangladesh and Myanmar. It is almost universally the case that these workers have to pay thousands of dollars to agents (both the licensed and unlicensed kind) to secure their jobs. Among domestic workers, the practice is to deduct these “agent fees” from their first few months of salary, and typically this means they work six to eight months for nearly nothing, after deduction. Among CMP workers, the practice is that prospective workers pay upfront before they set foot in Singapore for their jobs. Sometimes the prospective worker, even when he is still in his home country, finds himself dealing with an agent (usually unlicensed) based in Singapore and the fee has to be paid or remitted to Singapore. The amount that first-time CMP workers have to pay in fees is typically equivalent to twenty times his basic monthly salary. Effectively, it means he has to give twenty months’ of free labour just for the privilege of getting a job.

Although the ILO indicators mention “debt bondage”, and many campaigners outside of TWC2 use this term, ILO’s description of debt bondage does not map properly over the reality. ILO’s description refers to situations where it is the employer who has advanced a loan to an employee, and demands free labour from the employee to work off the loan.

The reality is different. Among domestic workers, the loan is generally advanced by the agent though the employer is the one re-directing the monthly salary to the agent as repayment of the loan. The employer’s hands are thus not clean. In the case of CMP workers, prospective workers have to pay their agents upfront; to raise the money needed, they often borrow from relatives, friends, banks and street-corner loansharks. So, whilst the reality is that workers have to pay mightily to buy their jobs, putting them deep in debt for months or years, the facts do not quite fit the ILO’s description of “debt bondage”.

Notwithstanding this, Singapore is, arguably, still non-compliant with Convention 29, because there is another indicator that flashes red: Abuse of vulnerability.

Just about every migrant worker is afraid to hear the dreaded words, “I will send you home if you don’t accept this” when uttered by his or her employer. The loss of a job when a loan (albeit from third parties) remains outstanding is financially devastating. Even when the loan has been cleared, the loss of a job implies (a) a difficult period of unemployment – Work Permit holders’ salaries are so low they rarely manage to build up a buffer of savings – and (b) the strong likelihood that they would have to go into debt all over again to pay the next agent they use to find them their next job.

Employers leverage their awareness of workers’ vulnerability to demand pay cuts, excessive overtime and submission to onerous working conditions. To the degree that the labour has been obtained through such psychological coercion, a case can be made that forced labour exists.

Excessive overtime

Having to work long hours in excess of legal limits is shockingly common among Work Permit holders. Even though Singapore has clear laws forbidding this, labour inspections and enforcement are virtually non-existent.

Employers get away with making demands for long hours because of workers’ financial vulnerability. These demands don’t have to be made explicitly. Migrant workers’ salaries tend to be so low that they would agree to work extra hours in excess of legal limits in order to earn more, so as to pay off their loans more quickly. But because there is a connection from debt to vulnerability and demands made by employers to work excessive hours, even if readily acceded to, it is hard to deny that this too is an area that is non-compliant with the Convention 29.

Salary abuses

Not all salary short-payments or non-payments come into the scope of forced labour. Sometimes, a company begins to face cash-flow problems due to business conditions and then fall behind on its salary obligations.

But it is startling how often TWC2 sees workers telling us that they have been short-paid from their very first day of work. For example, a worker might come to us saying he was paid only $480 a month as his basic salary when his Work Permit documentation clearly states the agreed salary was $600. Was the company in cash-flow difficulties from Day One? Or is it more probably that management did not intend to pay the agreed salaries?

Another common type of case would be that of a worker saying the employer never applied the correct rate of overtime pay. The rate the company applied was well below the rate stipulated by law. A variant of this would be where the company paid the rate required by law but consistently under-recorded the number of overtime hours worked.

Each time such a case comes up where salary shortfpayment kicks in from the very start of the job, it would be entirely reasonable to ask if the employer and its recruiter had carried out their recruitment in good faith, and to ask if they deliberately misled the prospective worker about the terms of employment with no intention of living up to the agreement. They might rely on the virtually certain fact that the worker would be in debt following the huge sums demanded as payment for the job. The employer might calculate that the worker would stay on the job despite the degraded compensation instead of lodging a complaint and losing the job as a result.

Labour obtained through such psychological coercion – that stems from misrepresentation during recruitment – easily checks the forced labour indcator: Deception.

We have only chosen to look at these three features of the migrant worker experience. Other features such as (a) retention of passports and training certificates by employers, (b) quality- or quantity-compromised meals for live-in domestic workers, and (c) space-limited and privacy-deficient accommodation for domestic and CMP workers also check other ILO indicators such as Retention of identity documents and Abusive working and living conditions. Our discussion here is not meant to be exhaustive.

Singapore needs to be more pro-active

The above realities contrast with the often-expressed position of the Singapore government that they take their international obligations very seriously. Several times, we have government officials say that Singapore does not lightly sign up to international conventions unless we are sure we can fulfil the obligations therein. Yet here we are with Convention 29 where it does not take much detective work to uncover areas of concern.

The three areas we zoomed in on have the same or related root causes: the manner in which migrant workers are recruited. They mostly come through unscrupulous agents in both origin and destination countries who charge exorbitant fees and are cavalier about deceptive assurances regarding remuneration. This is compounded on the employers’ part either by complicity or a readiness to exploit the financial vulnerability of the workers after they have arrived here.

Relying on legislation alone to solve this kind of cross-border problem is not realistic. This is an ecology problem; it needs also to be addressed through system change. (Of course, legislation gives bite to system change, so it continues to have a role). And this is why, for the longest time, TWC2 has advocated for the Singapore government to get more involved in the recruitment process, particularly for low-wage migrant workers. For years, we have argued for:

  • Ensure greater transparency: all Work Permit job vacancies must be openly advertised so that prospective workers in origin countries do not have to go through shady agents to find jobs;
  • Crack down on illegal agents operating in Singapore, and this should include cracking down on any employer dealing with an illegal agent;
  • Create a Singapore-based recruitment channel that, through digital technology, is able to reach prospective workers in source countries, so that the latter can bypass the unethical agents running around in their own countries;
  • Vigorously enforce salary rules, and any employer who had paid less than the documented salary from the very beginning should be asked to disprove a presumption that they had engaged in deceptive recruitment.

A laid-back attitude on the part of the Singapore government is not consistent with their claims about being assiduous with living up to whatever treaties or conventions they sign. In respect of Convention 29, the contradictions on the ground are more than evident.