Discussion: society & socialisation of migrant labour
Four people died in a relatively small fire that broke out in a shophouse used as a dormitory for workers from China, India, Bangladesh and Malaysia. The fire was reported at about 1:40am on Saturday, 6 December 2014, and put out within 30 minutes. The Straits Times and The New Paper carried the news in
The Facebook post by Minister for National Development Khaw Boon Wan 11 November 2014 (click thumbnail at right) titled 'Joint exercise with Police, SCDF & foreign worker ambassadors' accompanied by eight photographs does a great disservice to migrant workers who have played such an important role in building Singapore, especially those of South Asian origin
This is the talk TWC2 vice-president Alex Au gave at the National University of Singapore to a large class (about 300 - 400) of students from various faculties on 15 October 2014. The text here is a somewhat fuller version of the talk itself, which wasn't entirely read from script, and which was constrained by
By Danielle Hong Mohammed Gafur is here at the TWC2 office with a friend to deal with his injury compensation. He has kept all his bills and time cards, a practice of storing evidence learnt in the eleven years he has been living in Singapore. Though calm and rational, he is anxious, having witnessed too many
Recommended by the Committee of Inquiry (COI) into the Little India riot in its report released on Monday, 30 June 2014: the possibility of making services and amenities available to workers outside of areas prone to congregation i.e. Little India, thereby reducing possibilities of problematic events altogether. The COI stance, as reported in TODAY (4
Transient Workers Count Too made a written submission to the Commission of Inquiry that has been set up to look into the riot that occurred on the evening of 8 December 2013 on Race Course Road in Little India. This was sent to the COI in the first week of February. The pdf of
By Davina Tham Ever since recent events in Little India (see Riot in Little India after bus knocks down pedestrian), the tendency to depict migrant labourers as a matter of statistics, a numbered but faceless crowd, has only worsened: 28 charged, 53 deported and another 200 "issued a formal police advisory" (Today newspaper, 18 Dec
Straits Times Managing Editor Han Fook Kwang penned a longish op-ed in the Sunday Times of 15 December 2013. While written in the wake of the riot that occurred a week earlier in Little India, the essay addresses wider concerns, calling for a more layered understanding of the men and women who come here to
By Wajihah Hamid Watching what happened on Sunday in Singapore’s Little India made my heart sink. At one end of the line of fire were fellow Singaporeans while at the other end were Indian migrant workers – a group whom I followed closely for about 3 months, going to Little India every other day, doing
