2007 Jan - Feb

Presidential Message

Dear Member,

Brenda Yeoh recently told a seminar that, in thinking about how to integrate foreigners into the community, Singapore should go beyond just thinking about 'foreign talent' and include domestic workers, low-skilled workers, students and spouses.

Brenda is a professor of geography at NUS and has long studied the position of migrant workers. She was very helpful to the old TWC2 when we were doing our basic research in 2002-3. The articles that she and Shirlena Huang had written, and the constructive comments both women offered, were a great help.

In January, at the Institute Policy Studies Seminar on 'The New Politics of Cultural Identity', Brenda spoke up for more welcoming, positive policies and attitudes towards the 580,000 foreign workers now present here.

It was a timely address. The number of foreign domestic workers is steadily growing and there has been talk of around 50,000 more foreign men being taken on by the booming construction industry. The issue of how they are seen and treated will become more pressing.

On 11th January, the very day that Brenda gave her address, a letter from TWC2 about reported 'makeover' plans for Little India was published on the Straits Times Forum page (Thanks, Noor and Stephanie, for working on this!). We pointed out what this area means to many foreign workers: it is a social gathering place and somewhere to eat and shop at a low price. Their voices should be heard in discussions on the area's future.

A few days later (January 18th), a letter from Jolovan Wham, executive director of HOME, was posted on ST Interactive. He supported Brenda's views, proposing:

Instead of ghettoising foreign workers with isolationist policies, more should be done to encourage interaction and assimilation with Singaporeans: we should be involving them in grassroots and community activities that strengthen ties, rather than segregating them further. Events which celebrate Singapore's multicultural diversity, for example, should include foreign workers as well.

These were three voices raised in favour of inclusiveness, without prior consultation. I'm glad that happened. Obviously, this is an issue that needs attention and action and it is good to see it being brought before the public eye by different people who have a broadly similar perspective on it.

We'll keep on coming back to this basic theme: it was one of the ideas behind The Working Committee 2 Zocard in 2003 that bore the words: A maid is part of the family. And yet there are times when we forget she exists.

It was also a theme in our International Migrants' Day events in 2005 and 2006.

AGM


It is with the thought of being inclusive that the Executive Committee (ExCo) decided to hold TWC2's annual general meeting on a Sunday (March 25th) this year. Previous meetings took place on weekday evenings, but this meant that foreign workers would not be able to get there. Most male workers and a large minority of domestic workers have Sundays off, so this gives members from these backgrounds the chance to come along and take part in our decision making.

I hope that as many members as possible will come. We'll review what we did last year and make plans for events and projects in the year to come. We'll also be holding elections for the Exco, and could certainly benefit from having new members join that committee.

Thanks to everyone who has put in time and resources to TWC2 since the December newsletter went out. There has been a great deal of work done around the help line. Several supporters have made generous financial contributions to TWC2. In these cases, there are reasons for not mentioning names, but our appreciation should be recorded.

Thanks to Sha for pitching in and taking on a lot of extra work and responsibilities since the help line started and while we were short-staffed in January.  She is now working full time out of the TWC2 office as Operations Executive. Michael Chong, as Office Manager, has settled in well and is doing a good job in helping to ensure that TWC2 handles the rising volume of work coming its way.

Now is the time of year when we ask members to renew their memberships (unless you've only just joined!). Please continue your support for TWC2 by sending in your membership payment. This will ensure that you keep informed of our work and of the issues that concern us all and it will help TWC2 to go forward.

John Gee

(Braema is away from January-March; as vice president, John serves as acting president in her absence).

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Review: With hope in their hearts

A review of "Dreamseekers: Indonesian Women as Domestic Workers in Asia " by Dewi Anggraeni, Equinox Publishing. Jakarta/Singapore, 2006.

"The problems of Indonesian domestic helpers overseas are chronic and basically rooted in a system which can be described as makeshift, propped up by ad hoc regulations here and there, to treat symptoms which have come up and which cannot be ignored. What is needed is an overhaul, a remedial surgery instead of symptomatic treatments."

This is the conclusion of an Indonesian journalist, writer and poet based in Melbourne who has written a very interesting book comparing the situation facing Indonesian domestic workers in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong.

Rather than being an academic tome, it is written in highly readable journalist's prose. It makes useful comparisons of the situations in the three major destinations for Indonesian domestic workers, as well as giving a comprehensive picture of the start of the recruitment process in Indonesia and the practices of the sponsors and agents there.

Dewi Anggraeni interviewed many hundreds of foreign domestic workers throughout the region, as well as representatives of employers, agents, Indonesian Embassy officials and non-government organisations involved in the field. On this basis, she reports on each of their points of view.

Anggraeni highlights some of the most alarming cases of abuse of foreign domestic workers in each country and also some of the worst cases of crimes committed against employers by domestic workers themselves in order to gain an understanding of the causes of some of these problems, even though they constitute only a small proportion of the thousands of Indonesian FDW's that leave the country each year seeking better prospects.

The author estimates that there are presently over 90,000 Indonesian domestic workers employed in Hong Kong, more than 70,000 in Singapore and approximately 220,000 in Malaysia.

In each of the three chapters about these major destinations for Indonesian domestic workers, Anggraeni details their working conditions such as rate of pay, fees they need to pay, legal protections and their contract situations. While they are all different, the Indonesian Ambassador to Malaysia is quoted as saying that Hong Kong is the most conducive environment for Indonesian workers.

Anggraeni also highlights the recent measures to improve the situation by the Ministry of Manpower in Singapore including imposing minimum educational requirements, the compulsory entry test and the raising of the minimum age requirement so that workers must now be at least 23 years of age.

The interview with the First Secretary at the Indonesian Embassy in Singapore, Pak Fachry Sulaiman, is also very interesting given his many years of involvement in this issue and with many hundreds of different cases. At the time of the interview, at least 117 Indonesian women had died since 1999 from falling from high rise apartments while cleaning windows, hanging laundry or by suicide.

The worrying part of these gruesome statistics is that they are much higher than for the nationalities of domestic workers from other countries working in Singapore.

Anggraeni interviewed the office bearers from the Association of Employment Agencies (Singapore) about their role and their involvement in settling employer-employee disputes, even though it is not strictly speaking their responsibility. As the book was written before the recent introduction by AEAS and CaseTrust of a standard contract for foreign domestic workers, this move is not discussed.

'Dreamseekers' was sponsored by the International Labour Organisation, and takes the international conventions on labour standards, including UN approved policies, as basic to its approach.

Perhaps the most valuable insight from this book, is provided by the personal details about the dreams and ambitions of the women who leave their homes and families in order to seek better opportunities as domestic workers overseas. Many of course, hope to be able to send some money back to their families so that they can improve the living conditions and homes in their villages.

While many of them do manage to achieve their dreams, unfortunately a small proportion of them, but a very large number of individuals, find themselves in very difficult circumstances beyond their control. Hopefully more can be done, particularly in the system to recruit them in the first place to protect them and the people around them.

Imran Andrew Price, Treasurer of TWC2, 10th January, 2007.

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In the News: Flexibility?

Mr Zaqy Mohamad of Hong Kah GRC asked Minister of Manpower Ng Eng Hen what the position of his ministry was on the issue of employers who asked their domestic workers to look after their children while they were at relatives' homes and whether the employers faced disciplinary action.

In a written reply, the minister said that the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) had received 28 complaints about such cases in the first 10 months of 2006. This led to four employers being prosecuted, three fined and 16 given a warning. five cases were pending.

The minister noted that domestic workers are only allowed to work at the address stated on their work permits, but the Straits Times reports that he stated that the ministry was also aware that some employers in dual income families preferred that their workers should take care of their children with family members around:

"The Ministry of Manpower is prepared to exercise flexibility to allow such an arrangement," he said.

'However, the maid has to agree. Employers also have to ensure that the maids do not end up with a full load of housework in both homes, he added.'

('Flexibility on where maids work', Straits Times, 24th January, 2007)

TWC2 is certainly aware that many employers do like to have their workers go with their children to relatives' homes during holidays or before or after school and generally, their role is an extension of what they expected to do in the employers' homes - in other words, it is not extra work. But there are employers who do burden their workers with more tasks at their relatives' homes, and then it becomes very unfair to the workers and goes against the intention of the prohibition on illegal deployment. The worker ends up doing two jobs while only being paid for one.

Flexibility is no doubt needed, but it is to be hoped that, having given this signal to employers of taking an understanding attitude towards the needs of families in which both parents go out to work, the MOM will give guidelines to employers to protect the workers from being made to clean and tidy another household.

Mmm, this looks familiar....

Last year, freelance writer and TWC2 member Rachel Chalmers wrote an article that told of the conditions faced by many Indonesian women migrant workers and of how some are organising to improve their position. She conducted interviews with women in Indonesia, Hongkong and Singapore. She was commissioned to write the article by Unifem East and South-east Asia.

It eventually appeared under three different headings, with small editing changes, in the Hindustan Times, a big circulation Indian newspaper, Thailand's Bangkok Post and here in Singapore, in the Straits Times, on 22nd December 2006, where it was captioned "Band of sisters working for a change".

ASEAN DECLARATION ON THE PROTECTION AND PROMOTION OF THE RIGHTS OF MIGRANT WORKERS

This is an excerpt from the declaration issued by the 12th ASEAN Summit on 13 January 2007 in  Cebu,  Philippines.  It is the part of the declaration that particularly applies to Singapore, as a country that receives migrant workers.

OBLIGATIONS OF RECEIVING STATES

Pursuant to the prevailing laws, regulations and policies of the respective receiving states, the receiving state will:

1. Intensify efforts to protect the fundamental human rights, promote the welfare and uphold human dignity of migrant workers;
2. Work towards the achievement of harmony and tolerance between receiving states and migrant workers;
3. Facilitate access to resources and remedies through information, training and education, access to justice, and social welfare services as appropriate and in accordance with the legislation of the receiving state, provided that they fulfill the requirements under applicable laws, regulations and policies of the said state, bilateral agreements and multilateral treaties;
4. Promote fair and appropriate employment protection, payment of wages, and adequate access to decent working and living conditions for migrant workers;
5. Provide migrant workers, who may be victims of discrimination, abuse, exploitation, violence, with adequate access to the legal and judicial system of the receiving states;
6. 10.  Facilitate the exercise of consular functions to consular or diplomatic authorities of states of origin when a migrant worker is arrested or committed to prison or custody or detained in any other manner, under the laws and regulations of the receiving state and in accordance with the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (.)
   

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Activities

Help brochure: A new edition of 'Where to get help', the TWC2 brochure giving useful numbers for migrant workers facing problems, was brought out in December in time for International Migrants' Day. It has been fully updated in both its English and Bahasa Indonesia versions. Many have already been distributed, but if you can take some to give out to those who might need them, please contact the TWC2 office and arrange to obtain some.

Annual General Meeting (AGM): TWC2's AGM will be held on the afternoon of Sunday, 25th March, beginning at 2pm. It will be held at the TWC2 Office. The full agenda will be sent out to all members closer to the time.

Take a look: A moving video/photo essay about Indonesian women migrating to Singapore, Malaysia and the Middle East.

'Costly Dream' is presented by Human Rights Watch and was produced with the assistance of award-winning photographer, Susan Meiselas.

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