Domestic workers are the slaves of modern Asia. Are Hongkongers, Singaporeans and Malaysians ever going to change?

Singapore case of worker from Myanmar who was forced to eat own vomit and barred from using toilet has again laid bare Asia’s toxic reliance on cheap labour

Experts say some live in slave-like conditions and all grapple with a lack of legal protection, with society unwilling to change its perception of these women

Reading Time:7 minutes

An activist from the Asian Migrants Coordinating Body holds a placard that reads ‘End Modern Day Slavery in HK’ during a protest on March 8. Photo: AFP

Published: 9:15am, 24 Mar 2019Updated: 5:10pm, 31 Oct 2019

OVER 10 MONTHS, she was caned, barred from using the toilet, forced to eat her own vomit and warned that her relatives could be killed if she complained. It was a life Moe Moe Than, 32, a domestic worker from Myanmar, never imagined when she arrived in Singapore in 2012.

Last week, her Singaporean employers, a married couple with three children, were sent to prison – one for almost four years, the other for two years. They are also facing prison time for abusing an Indonesian domestic worker who was a colleague of Than.

This month, Filipino domestic worker Baby Jane Allas reported her Hong Kong employer to the city’s authorities for firing her after she had received a cervical cancer diagnosis. Allas said she had slept for 15 months without a bed or a mattress and not been fed properly.

Domestic worker advocates and labour experts say these two high-profile cases are just the tip of the iceberg. Accounts of Southeast Asian domestic workers in the Middle East being tortured, forced to work for hours on end and even sexually abused are well documented.

But a spate of abuse cases in recent years show this is also happening in Asia’s wealthy, modern cities. Migrant women face abuse and racial discrimination, some live in slave-like conditions and all grapple with a lack of legal protection or channels to voice their concerns in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong.

Observers put this down to old mindsets in society and prioritising financial gain.

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