Articles > Facts, Research, Analysis
Marine workers earn less than working at McDonald’s
By William Chin I was told that working in the marine industry is a lucrative segment, which pays higher than an average job. Economics 101 teaches that jobs that are dangerous would pay more than an average job to draw applicants. That is until one evening, when I meet the
Little India: a surveillance landscape
By Shona Loong Sandir’s story Standing together in Lembu Park Open Space (the ‘Minimart’), 32-year old Sandir points to a spot on the ground and reminisces. In 2008, on the first of three migration trips to Singapore, the Bangladeshi man was caught for littering here. He professes to remember it
Section 22B of EFMA: a deficient law
The story "Cannot sleep.... I remember my wife's crying" described the injustice done to Bangladeshi worker Humaun. He came to Singapore for a promised job only to be told there was none for him. The job offer had been properly documented through an In-principle Approval for a Work Permit (IPA)
Kuwait revamps recruitment companies for domestic workers, raises workers’ rights
Kuwait's legislature passed two new laws recently to improve the conditions of domestic workers. One of the laws sets up a new type of company for recruiting domestic workers to replace the private companies that currently recruit domestic helpers. The new type of company cannot take any payments from the recruited
Little India: a community landscape
By Shona Loong It is 7.30pm on a Sunday evening, and I am making my way through the heart of Little India. Although this route is familiar to me, everything looks different. Streets that are normally silent and empty are transformed by the presence of large numbers of migrant men
Wage protection system in UAE and Qatar
Our letter published in the Straits Times Forum on 17 June 2015 mentioned that countries in the Middle East have made it mandatory to pay workers' salaries through bank transfers when Singapore has not. This note provides a bit more detail about this point. UAE In the United Arab Emirates,
TWC2 submits UPR shadow report to UN Human Rights
Once in four years, each member state of the United Nations is subject to peer review with respect to its human rights record. The Singapore government will appear before this process, known as Universal Periodic Review (UPR), in Geneva, in January 2016. In the lead-up to this process, the UN
The Right to Rest: The effectiveness of the ‘day off’ legislation for foreign domestic workers
Government legislation has helped improve foreign domestic workers’ access to compensation in lieu of a day off, but 59% of foreign domestic workers in Singapore still do not get a weekly day off. To mark International Domestic Workers’ Day (16 June 2015), Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2) publishes a new
Direct Services Report for 2014
2014 marked Transient Workers Count Too's tenth year. It was also a year in which the number of meals served at The Cuff Road Project (our food programme for destitute migrant workers) since its launch in 2008 crossed the 500,000 mark. For the first time, we were regularly able to shelter
Just passing through
By Kellynn Wee and Marusa Godina The Singapore passport is powerful. According to the international 2014 Visa Restrictions Index, this neat crimson document offers Singaporeans visa-free travel to 167 out of 219 countries in the world, making our passport sixth in the world in terms of global mobility. Singaporeans’ easy