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Managing Female Foreign Domestic Workers in Singapore: Economic Pragmatism, Coercive Legal Regulation, or Human Rights?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 March 2012

Eugene KB Tan
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Abstract

Singapore's immigration discourse is deeply influenced by its need to “right-size” its population. As a society that has and remains in need of immigration, contemporary immigration and globalization have rigorously challenged the conventional thinking and understanding of citizenship, as well as notions of who belongs and who does not. Nevertheless, international marriages and pervasive in-and out-migration for purposes of employment, study, and family, conspire to make more pronounced the decoupling of citizenship and residence in Singapore. This transnational dimension sits uncomfortably with the policy makers' desire for, and the imperatives of, state sovereignty, control, and jurisdiction.

Although one quarter of people living in Singapore are foreigners, concerns of human rights and justice are largely peripheral, if not absent from the immigration discourse. This is seen most clearly in employment issues pertaining to foreign female domestic workers (FDWs), most of who come from other parts of Southeast Asia. ‘Rights talk’ is largely absent even as activists seek to engage the key stakeholders through the subtle promotion of rights for such workers.

The government, however, has resisted framing the FDW issues as one of rights but instead has focused on promotional efforts that seek to enhance the regulatory framework. This dovetails with the reality that immigration law also functions as quasi-family law in which the freedom of FDWs and other foreign menial workers to marry Singapore citizens and permanent residents are severely restricted. As such, the immigration regime's selectivity functions as a draconian gatekeeper. Justice and human rights are but tangential concerns.

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Articles
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Israel Law Review , Volume 43 , Issue 1 , 2010 , pp. 99 - 125
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press and The Faculty of Law, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem 2010

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References

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13 Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong analysed the declining birth rate problem starkly:

This means that we are not replacing both parents. The last time we were replacing both parents was 30 years ago [1976]. And that was a Dragon Year! If the total fertility rate falls further, we will not be replacing even the mother! Will Singapore last 100 years if local-born Singaporeans are becoming an endangered species?

Goh, The Singapore Nation: a Work in Progress, speech by the Senior Minister at the Marine Parade National Day Dinner, Aug. 19, 2006. In the Chinese horoscope, the Dragon year (which occurs once in the 12-year Chinese zodiac cycle) is regarded as an auspicious time to have a child. By 2005, all races in Singapore were reproducing below the replacement level, see Xueying, Li, Rules Eased As Part Of Efforts To Woo Immigrants: Urgent Need to Boost the Population is Underscored Together with Measures to Increase Births, The Straits Times, Aug. 24,2006Google Scholar.

14 For a general overview, see Yeoh, Brenda S.A. & Yap, Natalie, Gateway Singapore: Immigration Policies, Differential (Non)Incorporation, and Identity Politics, in Migrants to the Metropolis: The Rise of Immigrant Gateway Cities 177 (Price, Marie & Benton-Short, Lisa eds., 2008)Google Scholar.

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16 Fewer Foreign Workers? The Price is Slower Growth. The Straits Times, Oct. 21, 2008. The increase in the number of foreign workers in Singapore has to led to a lack of decent housing for them, and some Singaporeans' concern that a foreign worker dormitory in their residential neighborhood would lead to increased crime, disorderly behavior, and that the value of their residential properties would be negatively affected, see A Dangerous Divide, Today (Singapore), Sep. 18, 2008; Serangoon Gardens Dorm to Go Ahead, The Straits Times, Oct. 4, 2008Google Scholar; Margaret Drive to Get Foreign Worker Dorm, The Straits Times, Dec. 4, 2008Google Scholar.

17 On the global race for talent, see Shachar, Ayelet, The Race for Talent: Highly Skilled Migrants and Competitive Immigration Regimes, 81 N.Y.U.L. Rev 148 (2006)Google Scholar.

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19 To help regulate demand for FDWs and other transient workers by reducing excessive reliance on them, the government imposes a foreign worker levy. A FDW levy is SGD265 (normal) or SGD170 (concession) and is payable by the employer every month. See http://www.mom.gov.sg/publish/momportal/en/communities/work_pass/foreign_domestic_workers/during_employment/foreign_domestic_worker.html.

20 On global care chains, see Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy (Ehrenreich, Barbara & Hochschild, Arlie Russell eds., 2004)Google Scholar; Parrenas, Rhacel Salazar, Servants of Globalization: Women, Migration and Domestic Work (2001)Google Scholar. On the East Asian context, see Emiko Ochiai, Gender Roles and Childcare Networks in East and Southeast Asian Societies, in Asia's New Mothers, supra note 11; Ochiai, Emiko, Care Diamonds and Welfare Regimes in East and South-East Asian Societies: Bridging Family and Welfare Sociology, 18 Int'l J. Japanese Soc. 60 (2009)Google Scholar.

21 The concern that the FDWs are stealing jobs from the locals is unfairly exaggerated.

22 The approved source countries include Bangladesh, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Macau, Malaysia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Philippines, South Korea. Sri Lanka. Taiwan. and Thailand. see http://www.mom.gov.sg/publish/momportal/en/communities/work_pass/foreign_domestic_workers/application0/requirements.html. Information on the actual number of FDWs from any one source country is not available publicly.

23 For a thumb-nail sketch of the history of domestic help in Singapore and its persistence in the global capitalist economy, see Wong, Diana, Foreign Domestic Workers in Singapore, 5 Asia and Pac. Migration J. 117 (1996)CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. On Singapore as a patriarchal society, see Heng, Geraldine and Devan, Janadas, State Fatherhood: The Politics of Nationalism, Sexuality and Race in Singapore, in Bewitching Women, Pious Men: Gender and Body Politics in Southeast Asia (Ong, Aihwa ↦ Peletz, Michael eds., 1995)Google Scholar; Stivens, Maila, Post-modern Motherhoods and Cultural Contest in Malaysia and Singapore, in Working and Mothering in Asia: Images, Ideologies and Identities 29 (Devasahayam, Theresa W. & Yeoh, Brenda S.A. eds., 2007)Google Scholar.

24 However, the overall arrest rate in 2007 for foreigners (385 arrested per 100,000) is lower than that for Singapore citizens and permanent residents (435 per 100,000): see Unjustified Fears, Today (Singapore), Sep. 15, 2008. Such discourse is not unusual although highly discriminatory. On the use of criminal justice imagery and strategies in the management of foreign nationals, see Bosworth, Mary & Guild, Mhairi, Governing through Migration Control: Securiy and Citizenship in Britain, 48 Brit. J. Crim. 3 (2008)Google Scholar.

25 On the relevance and irrelevance of gender in Singapore, see Teo, Youyenn, Gender Disarmed: How Gendered Policies Produce Gender-Neutral Politics in Singapore, 34 Signs: J. Women in Culture & Soc'y 533 (2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 See Michael Kremer & Stanley Watt, The Globalization of Household Production, available at http://www.cid.harvard.edu/bluesky/papers/kremer_globalization_0609.pdf.

27 For a compelling discussion of the intimate connection between citizenship and life chances, See Shachar, Ayelet, The Birthright Lottery: Citizenship and Global Inequality (2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 International Convention on the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families, Oct. 21, 1950, 75 U.N.T.S. 287.

29 See also Martin, Susan and Abimourched, Rola, Migrant Rights: International Law and National Action, 47 Int'l Migration 115 (2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 I am grateful to one of the anonymous reviewers who pointed me to the useful literature on the “management of migration” and the “governance of economic migration.” See, e.g., Grugel, Jean & Piper, Nicola, Critical Perspectives on Global Governance: Rights And Regulation in Governing Regimes (2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Governing International Labour Migration: Current Issues, Challenges and Dilemmas (Gabriel, Christina & Pellerin, Hélène eds., 2008)Google Scholar, especially Part I.

31 See Conditions of Work Permits/S Passes imposed by the Controller of Work Passes under § 7(4)(e) of the Employment of Foreign Manpower Act, Ch. 91A, Statutes of the Republic of Singapore (revised ed. 2009), available at http://www.mom.gov.sg/publish/etc/medialib/mom_library/work_pass/files.Par.8149.File.dat/WP_S_Pass_Conditions.pdf.

32 As then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew declared, ‘[t]he basic difference in our approach springs from our traditional Asian value system which places the interests of the community over and above that of the individual’: Address by Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, at the opening of the Singapore Academy of Law, Aug. 31, 1990, available in 2 Singapore Acad. L. J. 155 (1990).

33 Carens, Joseph H., Immigration, Democracy, and Citizenship, in Of States, Rights, and Social Closure: Governing Migration and Citizenship 18 (Schmidtke, Oliver & Ozcurumez, Saime eds., 2008)Google Scholar.

34 Bell, Daniel A. & Piper, Nicola, Justice for Migrant Workers? The Case of Foreign Domestic Workers in Hong Kong and Singapore, in Multiculturalism in Asia 196 (Kymlicka, Will & Baogang He, eds., 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 E.g., the “ideology of geneticism is manifested in the public discourse of ‘economic rationality, investment strategy, and human resource management …”: see Wee, Vivienne, Children, Population Policy, and the State in Singapore, in Children and the Politics of Culture 184, 213–15 (Stephens, Sharon ed., 1995)Google Scholar. On the government's reticence and reluctance to regulate the work conditions of the FDWs, see Teo, Youyenn & Piper, Nicola, Foreigners in Our Homes: Linking Migration and Family Policies in Singapore, 15 Pop., Space & Place 147 (2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36 Employment Act, Ch. 91, Statutes of the Republic of Singapore (revised ed. 2009).

37 Id. However, § 67 of the Employment Act provides that the Manpower Minister may apply the Act to domestic workers:

The Minister may, from time to time by notification in the Gazette, apply all or any of the provisions of this Act with such modification as may be set out in the notification to all domestic workers or to any group, class or number of domestic workers and may make regulations to provide generally for the engagement and working conditions of domestic workers.

38 See Ministry of Manpower, Employers' Guidelines: Employment Laws and Contracts, available at http://www.mom.gov.sg/publish/momportal/en/communities/work_pass/foreign_domestic_workers/employers_guidelines/Employment_Laws_and_Contracts.html.

39 For a sample employment contract recommended by the sole consumer association in Singapore, see http://www.case.org.sg/downloads/casetrust/110906-Standard%20Employment%20Contract.doc. Given the generic nature of such standard contracts, limitations in terms of how they ensure fair and reasonable treatment of FDWs are evident, see Basu, Radha, Relook Maids' Pay and Benefits, The Straits Times, July 30,2009Google Scholar.

40 SGD5000 is equivalent to about USD3611 (USD1 = SGD 1.38 as at Nov. 24, 2009). In a belated recognition in 2009 that employers have little control over foreign workers absconding on their own accord, the Manpower Ministry would forfeit only half of the security deposit, if the employer had made reasonable efforts to locate the missing worker.

41 Yeoh, Brenda S.A. & Annadhurai, Kavitha, Civil Society Action and the Creation of “Transformative Spaces” for Migrant Domestic Workers in Singapore, 37 Women Stud. 548, 550 (2008)Google Scholar.

42 See http://www.mom.gov.sg/publish/momportal/en/communities/work_pass/foreign_domestic_workers/during_employment/6-monthly_medical.html.

43 See Ministry of Manpower's Conditions for Work Permit/Visit Pass for Foreign Worker, issued under the Employment of Foreign Workers Act, available at http://www.mom.gov.sg/publish/etc/medialib/mom_library/work_pass/files.Par.8149.File.dat/WP_S_Pass_Conditions.pdf.

44 Of course, there is nothing to stop a former FDW from marrying a Singapore resident outside of Singapore. However, the prospect of the former FDW being allowed to reside in Singapore with her husband subsequently is practically non-existent. Where immigration control is concerned, the elaborate security effort in conjunction with dealing with terrorism threats, biometrics such as fingerprints, retina and iris analyses to verify the identities of persons seeking entry to Singapore—whether as tourists or not—can be easily applied to former work permit holders seeking entry into Singapore. To build such a capability, it was announced in 2009 that Singapore's Immigration and Checkpoints Authority would set up a Human Factors Laboratory at its land checkpoints.

45 Parliamentary Debates Singapore Official Report, vol. 78, col. 666 (Sep. 21, 2004)Google Scholar per Senior Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Manpower, Mr Hawazi Daipi (author's emphasis).

46 Employment of Foreign Manpower Act, ch. 91A, Statutes of the Republic of Singapore (revised ed. 2009).

47 Penal Code, ch. 224, Statutes of the Republic of Singapore (revised ed. 2008). The Penal Code is Singapore's primary criminal law legislation.

48 Parliamentary Debates Singapore Official Report, vol. 68, cols. 1923-1924 (Apr. 20, 1998)Google Scholar per Minister for Home Affairs, Mr Wong Kan Seng.

49 ADF v. Public Prosecutor, [2010] Sing. L. R. 874.

50 Id. at para. 159.

51 Id. at paras. 219-20 (emphasis in the original).

52 Ferguson, Kathy E., Merry, Sally Engle & Mironesco, Monique, Introduction, in Gender and Globalization in Asia and the Pacific 7 (Ferguson, Kathy E. & Mironesco, Monique eds., 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

53 Yeoh, Brenda S.A., Bifurcated Labor: The Unequal Incorporation of Transmigrants in Singapore, 97 Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie 26 (2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the apparent lack of concern with the ‘permanent second-class citizenship’ for foreign domestic workers in Singapore and Hong Kong, see Bell & Piper, supra note 32, at 281-322.

54 There is a recent move to further distinguish the benefits and privileges for citizens and permanent residents, with the intent of giving citizens preferential treatment over permanent residents.

55 See, e.g., No Wages, No Work, Poor Living Conditions, The Straits Times, Dec. 28, 2008; Sick Foreign Workers Have It Tough, The Straits Times, Jan. 4, 2009; Crack Down on Abuse of Foreign Workers, The Business Times (Singapore), Jan. 7, 2009. See also Watch, H. R., Maid to Order: Ending Abuses against Migrant Domestic Workers in Singapore (2005)Google Scholar, available at http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2005/12/06/maid-order-0, which drew a strong response from the Singapore government, see Ministry of Manpower's response, available at http://www.mom.gov.sg/publish/momportal/en/press_room/press_releases/2005/20051206_MOMresponsetoHRWreport.html.

56 See also Ling, Cheah Wui, Migrant Workers as Citizens within the ASEAN Landscape: International Law and the Singapore Experiment, 8 Chinese J. Int'l L. 205 (2009)Google Scholar; Yeoh & Annadhurai, supra note 41; Lyons, Lenore, Transient Workers Count Too? The Intersection of Citizenship and Gender in Singapore's Civil Society. 20 Sojourn: J. Soc. Issues in Southeast asia 208 (2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an interesting analysis of the Malaysian position that is quite similar to Singapore's, see Elias, Juanita, Struggles over the Rights of Foreign Domestic Workers in Malaysia: The Possibilities and Limitations of ‘Rights Talk, 37 Econ. & Soc. 282 (2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

57 Lyons, Lenore, Transcending the Border: Transnational Imperatives in Singapore's Migrant Worker Rights Movement, 41 Critical Asian Stud. 89 (2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also exchange between Lyons, Lenore & Lee, Yeong Chong, Migrant Rights in Singapore, 41 Critical Asian Stud. 575 (2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an example of how the strategic framing and the use of national identity by activists can expedite the mobilization of international norms despite cultural barriers, see Kim, Nora Hui-Jung, Framing Multiple Others and International Norms: The Migrant Worker Advocacy Movement and Korean National Identity Reconstruction, 15 Nations & Nationalism 678 (2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the staging of protests by FDWs in Hong Kong, see Constable, Nicole, Migrant Workers and the Many States of Protest in Hong Kong, 41 Critical Asian Stud. 143 (2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a contrarian reminder of the limitations of NGOs vis-à-vis FDWs' rights, see Ong, Aihwa, A Bio-Cartography: Maids, Neo-Slavery, and NGOs, in Migrations and Mobilities: Citizenship, Borders, and Gender 157 (Benhabib, Seyla & Resnik, Judith eds., 2009)Google Scholar. See also Piper, Nicola, Temporary Economic Migration and Rights Activism: An Organizational Perspective, 33 Ethnic & Racial Stud. 108 (2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, on the need for an adaptive form of migrant rights activism centering on a transnational network perspective in order to better address migrants' socio-economic and legal insecurities.

58 See Manpower Ministry's advice on how to “create and maintain a positive working relationship” at http://www.mom.gov.sg/foreign-manpower/passes-visas/work-permit-fdw/before-you-apply/Pages/default.aspx.

59 Life Looking Better for Foreign Maids, The Straits Times, Dec. 12, 2009. The report noted that the number of maid abuse cases and deaths by accidents or suicides has declined although the number of FDWs working here has risen from 160,000 in 2005 to 190,000 in 2009. See also Devasahayam, Theresa W., Placement and/or Protection?: Singapore's Labor Policies and Practices for Temporary Women Migrant Workers, 15 J. of the Asia Pacific Econ. 45 (2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (“…any shift in labor policies and practices towards unskilled migrant workers tends mainly to benefit first the State, then the employer and, only last, the worker”). For a discussion of the best practices for each stage of the labor migration process, starting from recruitment and selection, in home and host countries, see Hugo, Graeme John, Best Practice in Temporary Labor Migration for Development: A Perspective from Asia and the Pacific, 47 Int'l Migration 23 (2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

60 For a description of some of the measures taken in recent years by the govemment, see Singapore's Fourth Periodic Report to the UN Committee on CEDAW, March 2009, see especially paras. 70-77, available at http://www.mcys.gov.sg/MCDSFiles/Download/Fourth_Periodic_Report.pdf. See also the second CEDAW Shadow Report to the UN, May 2007 by the Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE), available at http://www.aware.org.sg/downloads/CEDAW_2007-Report.pdf. AWARE is probably Singapore's foremost women's civil society organization. In their Shadow Report, AWARE urges the government to review its policies toward FDWs. See further the Manpower Ministry's guide to employers of FDWs, Your Guide to Employing a Foreign Domestic Worker, available at http://www.mom.gov.sg/publish/etc/medialib/mom_library/work_pass/files2Par.80861.File.tmp/FDW%20EG(Eng)%20Std.pdf.

61 See Press Release, Ministry of Manpower, Measures to Raise the Quality of Foreign Domestic Workers (FDWs) (Sept. 2, 2004), available at http://www.mom.gov.sg/publish/momportal/en_press_room/press_releases/2004/20040902-MeasuresToRaiseTheQualityOfForeignDomesticWorkers.html.

62 Id.

63 On the role of trade unions vis-à-vis migrant workers in Asia, see Migrant NGOs and Labor Unions: A Partnership in Progress?, 14 Asian & Pacific Migration J. (2006)Google Scholar, a special guest-edited issue by Nicola Piper and Michele Ford; Piper, Nicola, Transnational Politics and the Organising of Migrant Labour in Southeast Asia – NGO and Trade Union Perspectives, 20 Asia-Pacific Population J. 87 (2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I am grateful to one of the anonymous reviewers who helpfully pointed me to the literature in this area.

64 All quotes in this paragraph are taken from the speech by Mr Hawazi Daipi, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Manpower and Health, at the Migrant Workers Carnival and Launch of the Migrant Workers Centre, Apr. 26, 2009, available at http://www.mom.gov.sg/publish/momportal/en/press_room/mom_speeches/2009/20090426-speech_by.html. It has been reported that the government provided seed funding for the MWC, see Foreign Workers: Another Source of Aid, Today (Singapore), Feb. 23, 2009. For a media fact sheet on the MWC, see http://www.mom.gov.sg/publish/etc/medialib/mom_library/corporate/files.Par.20393.File.tmp/COS%2009%20-%20Speech%203%20-%20Factsheet%20-%20MWF.pdf.

65 The Flor Contemplacion case, which involved a Filipina FDW convicted of murder and was hanged, disrupted Singapore-Philippines bilateral relations. See, e.g., May, R.J., The Domestic in Foreign Policy: The Flor Contemplacion Case and the Philippine-Singapore Relations, 29 Pilipinas 63 (1997)Google Scholar; Hilsdon, Anne-Marie, What the Papers Say: Representing Violence against Overseas Contract Worker, 9 Violence Against Women 698 (2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the Singapore government's position, see Flor Contemplacion: The Facts of the Case (Singapore: Ministry of Information and the Arts, 1995)Google Scholar. On the Philippines government response to reduce the vulnerability and empower their citizens in overseas employment, see Guevarra, Anna Romina, Managing “Vulnerabilities” and “Empowering” Migrant Filipina Workers: The Philippines' Overseas Employment Program, 12 Soc. Identities 523 (2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

66 Speech by Mr Hawazi Daipi, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Manpower and Health, at the Migrant Workers Carnival and Launch of the Migrant Workers Center, Apr. 26, 2009, available at http://www.mom.gov.sg/publish/momportal/en/press_room/mom_speeches/2009/20090426-speech_by.html.

67 Portes, Alejandro, Migration and Development: Reconciling Opposite Views, 32 Ethnic & Racial Stud. 5, 17 (2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a conceptual discussion of the linkages between rights-based approaches to development and economic migration, see Piper, Nicola, The “Migration-Development Nexus” Revisited from a Rights Perspective, 7 J. Hum. Rts. 282 (2008)Google Scholar.

68 On the role of remittances by migrant workers to their home countries, see Vertovec, Steven, Transnationalism 103–19 (2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the Philippines as a “labor brokerage state” that manages and sends its citizens to work abroad, see Rodriguez, Robyn Magalit, Migrants for Export: How the Phillippine State Brokers Labor to the World (2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Guevarra, Anna Romma, Marketing Dreams, Manufacturing Heroes: The Transnational Labor Brokering of Filipino Workers (2010)Google Scholar. For how the dominant neo-liberal global regime enforces notions of women's domesticity in migration for Filipina migrant workers and their families, see Parrenas, Rhacel Salazar, The Force of Domesticity: Filipina Migrants and Globalization (2008)Google Scholar.