Saturday, June 28, 2014

The New Slave Markets

The slave market is alive and well in Singapore.  Maids are put on display and made available for 'purchase' in central shopping malls. You will find five levels of brightly lit rooms and galleries called "Homekeeper" and "Budget Maid". Inside these rooms, dozens of women sit in a listless, artificial silence. They nod respectfully as you enter, and some watch closely as you speak to staff. You might take one home with you - for two years, or longer.

The women, domestic workers, come from Indonesia, the Philippines, and Myanmar. They sit beneath garish signs and posters, testifying to their friendliness and industriousness, or advertising "super promo" rates and "special discounts". Along one aisle, domestic workers push each other around in wheelchairs, as though they're taking care of the elderly. In another gallery, a woman cradles a baby doll and pretends to change its diapers.

Jolovan Wham, executive director of the Humanitarian Organisation of Migration Economics (HOME), a migrant workers advocacy group based in Singapore, said that some agencies market their domestic workers like "commodities". He adds that racial stereotypes are sometimes used in transactions with patrons. "Some of the stereotypes include Filipinos as 'smarter', Indonesians as 'less bright' and Burmese as 'sweet-natured and compliant'."

Bukit Timah and other shopping centres like it are the culmination of networks and organisations extending from Singapore to various parts of Southeast Asia: from brokers who recruit women from poor countries, to training centres that prepare women for life abroad, to "runners" who ferry domestic workers from airports to shopping centres, and finally to the employment agencies themselves, of which there are hundreds in Singapore, competing in what is effectively a multimillion dollar industry. Wham says that there are currently 215,000 domestic workers in Singapore. Most domestic workers who come to Singapore have large debts in the form of placement fees paid to agencies as monthly salary deductions. Some domestic maids also work in Singapore illegally. A number of women are employed even though they are underage and some will be brought into the country under conditions indicative of trafficking.

Shelley Thio, executive member of Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2)  raised concerns over Singapore's "live-in" requirement, by which a full-time domestic worker is legally obliged to live in the home of her employer. "We have continually advocated that the live-in requirement is unsatisfactory because it easily leads to abuse." The live-in requirement can leave women vulnerable to sexual abuse. Earlier this year, a Cambodian domestic worker was sexually harassed by her employer's father, with whom she was made to share a room. Although the woman had complained about this arrangement, both to her employers and employment agency, nothing was done to change her situation prior to the abuse.
 Istiana, an Indonesian domestic worker who has recently come to work in Singapore. "Those signs that say 'cheap price' and 'discount maid'. But these are people."

From here 

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