By Lee Min-wei In the wee hours of 3 June 2015, Juvy, a petite and soft-spoken Filipina domestic worker, mustered the courage to flee from her employer’s apartment. Leaving behind most of her belongings in a locked suitcase, she put what she could into a small tote and yellow plastic bag and took a taxi
By Alexandra Galvez “I don’t want to go to jail. I cannot come back to Singapore to work if I go to jail. I like Singapore and I want to continue working here. I need to provide for my family,” Ali (not his real name) is worried, his countenance darkening with anxiety and desperation. The
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 trips in and out of
By Maya Nguyen Three of us from TWC2 were in a ward of a major hospital. The hospital's medical social worker had asked us to come speak with a domestic worker who had been warded; she might have employment problems that medical social workers could not help with. The domestic worker -- let's call her
By Lauri When she came down to meet us for the first time, "she had only a small bag containing her documents," Karno recalls. "She didn't even have her clothes and things." TWC2 social worker Karno and a volunteer were waiting at the foot of an HDB block of flats to rescue Indonesian domestic worker
By Nissa Mai Continued from Part 1. I have a lot of other questions for Surya [1]. How did such an empowered, decisive young woman get trapped in a clearly illegal and exploitative situation for such long time? Wasn't her contract for only two years? And if she didn't receive her salary, why didn't she
By Nissa Mai “I will kill you ah!” She very angry, angry. She smack me four times. I say, “I'm a human, I'm sorry!” [Then], Amah show me the big knife. She say, “[If] you argue, I cut you with the big knife.” That's when Surya (not her real name) ran away for the first
By Nissa Mai The flight from Singapore to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, wasn't long — just under two hours — but for Margarette, the journey represented a whole new beginning, a fresh take on life. After years of domestic labor, she was finally going to begin her career in the hospitality line. Margarette, a Filipina national,
We asked new volunteers who helped out at our July Outreach to contribute some reflection and feedback. Here is one: By Ying Zhen It was my first time participating in a TWC2 outreach activity. I was a little nervous at first because I did not know if I could do what was expected of me.
By Pat Meyer and Christine Pelly, photos by Low Yim Kuan Over the course of two days in January, twenty migrant workers from Bangladesh and India talked about their lives with just over 200 students from over 40 different countries. The students were 14- and 15-year-olds from an international school in Singapore, United World College
