Too packed... for foreign workers
27, 000 workers get better quarters
By Arul John
New Paper, 17 September 2010
Photo caption: Living in a container - Foreign workers' living conditions in a container in Jurong left a deep impression on TWC2's Shelley Thio. Picture in TNP courtesy of Shelley Thio.For 18 months, Mr Mehede Hassan slept in an overcrowded illegal dormitory at Upper Thomson Road.
The Bangladeshi, 25, slept on a wooden plank on the upper bunk of a double-decker bed.
He shared the dormitory - about the size of a school hall - with 400 other migrant workers. They had only two toilets, no windows and one door to get in and out.
The workers were rescued last January last year after a Ministry of Manpower (MOM) raid.
When The New Paper spoke to him last month, he had been moved to a proper dormitory in Kranji.
Between 2007 and last year, about 24,700 foreign workers were similarly "rescued". They were relocated from unsuitable accommodation to better housing, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Manpower and Health Hawazi Daipi told Parliament yesterday.
He said this in response to a question from MP Christopher de Souza on the number of workers who were found to be housed in inappropriate accommodation in the last three years.
MOM had revealed to The New Paper earlier that about 40 percent of the 1,460 workers quarters inspected between January last year and April this year were found to be "unacceptable" to live in.
Migrant workers advocacy groups Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2) and Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics (HOME) have been monitoring the problem.
Legal secretary Shelley Thio, 50, of TWC2, described a crowded six-metre container she came across in Jurong last year.
She said: "Although the place was air-conditioned, there was only one entrance/exit. The other door was blocked by double-decker beds.
"The workers bathed in an open area just outside which was infested with rats.
"Their bathing and cooking areas were next to a drain filled with stagnant water, and the workers were frequently bitten by mosquitoes."
She also recalled a dormitory in Benoi Road that housed about 400 foreign workers.
She said: "The workers slept on double-decker beds and even on the floor. All the workers had to share a common bathing area and toilet."
Paid $150 a month
The workers told Ms Thio that between $100 and $150 were deducted each month from their salaries to pay for their accommodation.
Another $110 is deducted for food. But all they get is plain rice with gravy or two plain roti prata per meal.
Mr Jolovan Wham, Home's executive director, said he often learns about unsuitable accommodation after the workers approach Home for help in getting their overdue salaries.
Mr Hawazi said that employers were aware of the requirements for the housing of foreign workers. The rules are clearly stated on the MOM website.
He said for each worker found in unacceptable housing, errant employers could be fined up to $5,000, jailed up to six months, or both.
He did not give figures about the largest fines, or the most severe penalties meted out, but added that based on the severity of their offences, the errant employers could be barred from new applications for foreign workers and renewing the work permits of their existing workers for a period of time.
