April 2015

146 278

LIFE&FAMILY
146 April15
More information
• Human Trafficking in Asia:
Forcing Issues, edited by
Sallie Yea. (Routledge, 2014)
• Social Visits and Special
Passes: Migrant Women
Exploited in Singapore’s Sex
and Nightlife Entertainment
Industry (unwomen-nc.org.sg)
• Troubled Waters: Trafficking
of Filipino Men into Long Haul
Fishing Industry (twc2.org.sg)
• A new report on labour
trafficking of migrant men in
Singapore will be released in
August.
seven days a week, to everyone who
lives in Singapore, their experiences
remain largely unknown to most of us.
Sallie has interviewed 30 Tamil and over
100 Bangladeshi men about their time
in Singapore; in July, she plans to visit
Bangladesh and the Southern Indian
state of Tamil Nadu to follow up with a
returned group, known colloquially as
“failed migrants”.
“They leave Singapore because they
lose their job or they get injured,” says
Sallie. “But returning home can be
miserable: they suffer rejection by their
families and they are often indebted to
moneylenders for their placement and
visa fees. Many become depressed.
Those who are permanently injured have
to rely on compensation money as they
have no chance of returning to work.”
She estimates that 90 percent of
workers are in debt bondage. “They owe
huge fees to agencies for their placement
in Singapore, despite these fees being
illegal. Some unscrupulous employers
make regular and arbitrary deductions,
which can drastically diminish salaries
that are already below $1,000. Others
are vulnerable to tardy employers who
do not pay them for months.”
Children thousands of kilometres away
feel the knock-on effect. “Some may be
withdrawn from school if the father or
relative supporting them does not send
money. Themen are caught between two
worlds, and the consequences weigh
heavily on their shoulders.”
Deceptive recruitment
Last year, Sallie under took an
assessment for UN Women Singapore
of migrant women who are exploited
in Singapore’s sex and nightlife
entertainment industries. This is one
example of working in partnership with
NGOs to produce reports from research;
the findings can advance their (and
the government’s) understanding of
the issues facing trafficked persons in
Singapore, and can be used for their
own support work and advocacy.
With the assistance of the Franciscan
Missionaries of Mary in Geylang, Sallie
interviewed 55 Filipino and 51 Indonesian
women who migrated for tenuous and
poorly understood work opportunities.
“They left behind gender discrimination
and economic marginalisation in their
home countries, only to encounter deceit
about the nature and conditions of the
work available to them in Singapore,”
she says.
Working in bars as hostesses, they
are vulnerable to exploitation and can
be forced unknowingly into other work,
including sex work, because employers
change their conditions of employment
after they arrive. Sallie is resolute on
the women’s circumstances. “This is
not something to moralise about; it’s
a poorly understood labour issue – a
complex chain from recruiters to pimps
and agents; club owners profit from
exploiting migrant women’s sexual
labour,” she says.
Raising awareness
While the spectrum of misery ranges
from male workers in crippling debt to
young women put out to work by pimps,
Sallie says neither is worse than the
other. “They are all equally exploited.
It is further compounded if the person
has family pressures and cannot live up
to their expectations, or comes from a
broken home and has nowhere to go.”
So how can this research help the
people who have confided their stories
and placed their trust in her? Reluctant
to grab attention through screaming
headlines, Sallie prefers instead to
work with government to bring about
legal change. One way is to suggest
amendments to laws and regulations
governing the employment of foreign
workers, to improve the workplace
environment.
“Proving assertions and backing
claims with legitimate data and
considered research is a more effective
way to achieve change,” she says.
How to help:
Funds raised from a $20
donation for the book A
thousand and one days: stories
of hardship from South Asian
Migrant Workers in Singapore
are directed to two causes. The
first, a suitcase fund, supports
workers who would otherwise
return home penniless or in
debt (email for details). The second is a pilot project
aimed at supporting the education costs of the children and siblings of
migrant workers who have no means to remit money; it aims to ease the
anxieties of failed migrant men and help restore the resilience of their families
at home (email for details). There are plans to extend
the suitcase fund to women trafficked into the sex industry.