Stories of Transient Workers in Singapore

Breakout

I stood there in silence as my employer berated me. This employer was considerably stricter than the previous one, and constantly nitpicked at my faults and shortcomings, and this time, it was forgetting to lock the front door. Failure to meet her extremely high standards only led to lectures where she endlessly criticized and threatened to fire me. I raised my head when the scoldings stopped abruptly, only to see my employer return, cane in hand. Without further ado, she proceeded to beat me with the cane unrelentlessly. This was nothing I had expected. I cried out in pain, tried to beg her to stop, but to no avail. My employer saw fit to punish me as such as I had evidently failed to learn my lesson. This, I thought, this was not what I envisioned when I first came to Singapore to work, yet it was happening at this very moment. I’ve had enough of this. I stood up suddenly, grabbed the cane my employer was holding, and promptly broke it into two pieces. I walked out, out of the door, leaving the house, my stunned employer, and the again unlocked door behind me once and for all.

Footnote:

This story depicts the violation of article 5 of the UDHR, which states that no one should be subject to degrading treatment, as well as article 23 of the UDHR, which lists the right to work under favourable conditions. Verbal and physical abuse of maids is not uncommon in Singapore, and maids are often afraid to report such cases as they have developed a fear of their employers. This in turn leads to a vicious cycle where maids submit to abuse from their employers, while employers are no longer afraid of being caught. As such, protection needs to be set in place to prevent cases like these from occurring.