Singapore urged to reform law on hiring domestic workers
Forced labour a problem due to lack of legal protection and the isolated nature of their work, say charities
Singapore had to overhaul its rules and systems for the hiring of foreign domestic workers to put a stop to forced labour in the wealthy city-state, campaigners said on Tuesday. Singapore is a top destination for poor women from countries including Indonesia, Myanmar and the Philippines, who take up jobs to cook and care for local families. But the estimated 250,000 migrant domestic workers are “highly susceptible” to forced labour due to lack of legal protection and the isolated nature of their work, according to a report issued by two charities on Tuesday. “It’s pretty worrying,” said Sheena Kanwar, executive director at the Singapore-based Humanitarian Organization for Migration Economics (HOME), which campaigns for migrant workers and co-authored the report. “Policies should make sure our workers are not vulnerable to forced labour but right now, they allow for that. The issue is so invisible because it happens in households,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone. Ba...
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