Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Foreign Domestic Workers restrictions on their religious practices in Singapore?

While blog-hopping, came across this http://nusms.blogspot.com/2008/03/religious-freedom-for-indonesian-maids.html.

For a mere SGD$200++ per month, some of these domestic workers need to work like labourers, deprived of food, salaries, religious freedom, and social contact. The full report is available here http://hrw.org/reports/2005/singapore1205/6.htm .

10 Facts abut Foreign Domestic Workers in Singapore- http://www.scwo.org.sg/cms/content/view/111/29/

1. There are more than 140,000 foreign domestic workers (FDWs) in Singapore. Most are from Indonesia and the Philippines. The rest come from Sri Lanka, Thailand, Myanmar, India and Bangladesh.

2. One in eight households in Singapore employs a foreign domestic worker.

3. The number of FDWs has increased almost thirty fold since the Foreign Domestic Worker scheme was introduced in 1978.

4. Each day, an average of 10 FDWs seek help and advice from their embassies because of problems such as physical and/or sexual abuse, non-payment of wages, not being given adequate food, and work-related stress.

5. In 2001, MOM banned 49 people from hiring FDWs. This was 12 times as many as in 1997.

6. Nine out of 10 people accused of maid abuse are women. This has been attributed to the stress of shouldering the household burden alone coupled with the lack of family support at home.

7. In the last four and a half years, 90 FDW’s, mostly Indonesians, have fallen to their deaths from high-rise buildings.

8. In 2001, less than 1% of the total population of FDW’s ran away from their employers and was not successfully repatriated.

9. Employers lodged 350 complaints against maid agencies in 2001, a 50% rise since 1998.

10. Only 19 of the more than 700 maid agencies in Singapore have been accredited under the Case trust scheme so far.