By Meera Rajah Yati (not her real name) was promised that she would only have to wait in Batam for a week, before returning to Singapore to work with a new employer. The week became a month, and the month eventually turned into a year. Her previous employer had “scream[ed] and throw the things then
By Walter Wadiak As I sit down to do my first interview with a migrant worker, I’m looking for problems. Perhaps a story about an uncompensated injury — I have already seen plenty of these in my few visits here. Maybe I will find a man whose meagre salary has been either underpaid or not
By Fuxiong In the minutes following his three-metre fall, with his right shin and back in pain, Hossian Ramzan was carried by two "tamil man" on the instructions of a company supervisor to a shipping container, "to rest". "Then they lock the door." It worried him, but at first he gave them the benefit of
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
It is still October 2014. Chodawre Badal doesn't say much, but just shows your writer a letter from the National University Hospital (NUH) giving him an assessment date for 8 May 2015, seven months away. 'Assessment' is the stage when a worker, following a work injury, is assessed for residual permanent incapacity, so that an
In a triple celebration 7 December 2014, TWC2 marked its tenth anniversary and International Migrants Day with a benefit event Lunch with Heart. Under the glass dome of Kebabs and Curries atop Mustafa Centre, TWC2's largest-ever event had hundreds of attendees in constant motion, from food to games to meeting old friends and making new
By Keith Wong "He do nothing," says Tariqul of his lawyer. Tariqul's medical assessment was "more than three months" ago, and he's been waiting to hear how many "points" (a measure of permanent disability) has been awarded for his leg injury. But his lawyer keeps on telling him to "wait, wait". That's the same answer
Here's is an op-ed by TWC2's John Gee that was published in the Straits Times on Wednesday 3 December 2014: A win-win way to help injured foreign workers By John Gee. Straits Times, 3 December 2014 The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) is considering outsourcing the inspection of workplaces to counter the illegal employment of foreign
At a symposium organised by the Asia Research Institute, TWC2 head of research John Gee said that whilst globally, there had never been better protection in law for migrants' rights, yet in many respects, their actual position was going backwards. Even in Singapore, he felt there has been progress, but placement costs represent one area in which
By Eitan After a year of volunteering, I can now spot a new guy at our soup kitchen with little difficulty. Unlike the 'regulars' who know the drill -- present a meal card, sign into the registration book, get a token -- and who also engage in some banter with TWC2 volunteers, the new ones
