Coronavirus: after Little India riot, Singapore promised migrant workers decent housing. What happened?

Some 13,000 migrant workers in dorms – mostly from India, Bangladesh and China – have tested positive for Covid-19 since the start of April

Their living conditions have now become a matter of national debate amid criticism they were in the government’s blind spot

Reading Time:12 minutes

Migrant workers outside their dormitory rooms at Cochrane Lodge II on April 16. Photo: Reuters

Published: 10:00am, 2 May 2020Updated: 1:45pm, 6 May 2020

Before leaving his hometown of Dhaka 17 years ago in search of better wages in Singapore’s construction industry, Zakir Hossain Khokan was a freelance journalist in Bangladesh.

It cost S$10,000 (US$7,094) to pay the recruiters, but his family was able to raise the funds by selling land and taking out loans and the 41-year-old is now a quality assurance officer, living in one of the city state’s many crowded mega-dormitories.

The living conditions of Singapore’s army of low-wage migrant workers have become a matter of national debate over the past month as the novel coronavirus swept through their dormitories – the biggest of which house between 10 and 20 men to a room, sometimes sharing a communal shower area with more than 100 others.

Since the start of April, some 13,000 migrant workers living in dorms – mostly labourers from India, Bangladesh and China – have tested positive for the Covid-19 illness caused by the virus, constituting some 85 per cent of Singapore’s total infections.

The dormitory operators, ranging from listed conglomerates to smaller construction companies, have since come in for criticism after reports emerged of kitchens infested with cockroaches, and bathrooms with overflowing urinals. As dormitories are regulated by the government, it has raised questions about how the authorities have enforced rules, why they seemed to have overlooked a brewing outbreak and if tougher legislation is needed on dormitories, some of which have become highly profitable for their owners.

At Cochrane Lodge 2 where Khokan has lived for eight years, dormitory staff seemed unprepared for the Covid-19 outbreak, he said, even though Singapore had its first infection as early as January 23 and the first migrant worker caught the disease on February 8.

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Coronavirus: after Little India riot, Singapore promised migrant workers decent housing. What happened?

Some 13,000 migrant workers in dorms – mostly from India, Bangladesh and China – have tested positive for Covid-19 since the start of April Their living conditions have now become a matter of national debate amid criticism they were in the government’s blind spot

Some 13,000 migrant workers in dorms – mostly from India, Bangladesh and China – have tested positive for Covid-19 since the start of April

Their living conditions have now become a matter of national debate amid criticism they were in the government’s blind spot