Singapore’s foreign domestic workers vulnerable to forced labour, report finds

Despite regulation and legal status, maids are susceptible to exploitation, sometimes by employers who may not realise they are engaging in ‘subtle coercion’

The Manpower Ministry says the report does not accurately reflect conditions for maids in Singapore

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Foreign domestic workers in Singapore have reported being overworked, receiving verbal abuse, not having enough food, and having to give their employers massages. Photo: AFP

Published: 9:52pm, 15 Jan 2019Updated: 3:02am, 16 Jan 2019

Foreign domestic maids in Singapore are susceptible to being victims of forced labour, despite them being documented workers with legal rights such as paid medical insurance and a rest day each week, according to a new report.

Between April 2017 and March last year, 872 workers complained of issues such as overwork, verbal abuse, salary problems, inadequate food, and having to give their employers massages, said migrant rights group Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics (Home).

Their stories formed the basis of a report titled “Behind Closed Doors: Forced Labour in the Domestic Work Sector in Singapore” that Home and Hong Kong-based anti-human trafficking advocacy group Liberty Shared released on Tuesday.

Singapore has the second-largest population of foreign domestic workers in Asia. As of December 2017, there were 246,800 in the Lion City, behind only the 370,000 working in Hong Kong.

Home pegged the workers’ forced labour susceptibility to Singapore’s “use and discard” regime that treats them as transient employees who are not entitled to permanent residency or citizenship.

These guest-worker programmes also exist in the United States and Canada, and have the following common traits: a migrant worker is only allowed to work for a particular employer or in a specific industry; they are clustered in sectors in which the work is generally low-paid and working conditions are poor, such as agriculture or domestic work; and they can be easily dismissed and repatriated.