Human Rights Watch’s (HRW) Maid to Order report on Singapore’s foreign domestic workers found that from 1999 to 2005, around 147 foreign domestic workers have died while working. This number included both fatal workplace accidents and suicides. HRW cites the unsafe and stressful work environment, the large debts incurred through the use of employment agents, coupled with abuse from their employers as the main causes of domestic worker suicides and accidents. Most were due to falling from heights, as a popular method of suicide is self-defenestration. Falling out of windows while cleaning was also a common cause of workplace fatalities. Other abuses in the workplace documented in the report ranged from “forced confinement, unpaid wages, and exorbitant debt payments.” Added to this is a litany of other verbal and physical abuse, which can be from either the labor agents or the domestic employer. Singapore’s low crime rate in general sits incongruously when compared to the rates of abuse inflicted upon its foreign domestic worker population. The Day Off law seeks to target this statistic.
Posted on: Sat, 17 Aug 2013 09:46:50 +0000
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