Discrimination against foreign domestic workers in Singapore

Firstly, one instance of discrimination would be domestic worker abuse. The employment of domestic workers in Singapore is quite high – the number stands at around 150 thousand. Most of them are migrant Sri Lanka, amounting to about 10% of the total number of foreigners working here. Domestic workers are the biggest category of foreign workers in Singapore.

However, these workers are excluded from Singapore’s Employment Act. Key labour conditions, such as wages, hours of work, and salary deductions are left to employers and agencies, while domestic workers have little or no bargaining power. This has resulted in many cases of domestic worker abuse, whereby the workers are forced to work long hours with insufficient rest or are confined to their workplace. Such workers should be protected. This is particularly important because foreign workers tend to agree to work for relatively low wages in Singapore for fear of being sent back to their own country, where pay is even lower. In my opinion, these cases of abuse should be regarded as discrimination against the domestic workers. They are clear signs that discrimination against domestic workers is a problem in Singapore.