Singapore's Migrant Workers

We are to be a CITY OF REFUGE to the foreigners, blessing them instead of alienating. I was talking to a friend's dad about the plight of migrant workers in Singapore yesterday, how we can be so blind to their cross-cultural struggles, personal troubles and plights, and make shallow judgements on them.

But we are called to be a blessing.... not to cheat, underpay, mistreat, frown on, withhold hospitality. TODAY, this article appeared in The Straits Times.


COOKING UP A STORM: It's all hands to the pump to get meals ready for the Bangladeshi and Indian residents. Four men, with blue plastic bags tied round their feet, chop meat into small pieces on the floor of the open area behind the canteen, as blood trickles into the drain. Breakfast and lunch are prepared throughout the night and delivered to bedsides before 5am. Dinner is ready by the time the men return from work. Residents pay about $130 a month for the service. Breakfast is usually a few pieces of chapatti and curry; the other meals are rice with curry, meat and vegetables. Workers complain about the quality and quantity of meat but many continue to patronize the caterers because cooking is not allowed on hostel premises and paying less than $2 for a full name is too good a deal to turn down. Bangladeshi factory worker Sohel, 28, who has been in the hostel for four years, recalls seeing newly arrived workers cry when they open their food packets. 'The first meal they will eat halfway and stop,' he said. However, they have no choice but to adapt, he said, because food elsewhere is too expensive.

Workers listen to a fuzzy broadcast about the Bangladesh elections last December. Mr Akter Hossain, 35, tunes in to BBC Bangladesh, which can be received only on the third-storey ledge of Kaki Bukit Hospital. -- ST PHOTOS: SAMUEL HE

This photojournalist spent a month staying with the migrant workers in their hostel, experiencing the dirt, cramped quarters, yet gleaning insight into their personal lives and stories.

"It would give foreign workers here an identity and allow people to see that they are no different than us".

"I surprised myself that I could spend so many nights sleeping in such conditions and my temporary stay in their world taught me that we could really be friends.

I hope that Singaporean readers who hold negative views of migrant workers will reconsider them after seeing these images."
(Read more here.)

PRAY :
- For a change of attitude in Singaporeans towards foreigners working in our land. For us to see them as equals, albeit a different expression, but with human needs, emotions and struggles too.

- For protection over those who have been cheated of wages, encountering problems with employers/fellow colleagues, homesickness and family issues, health issues, difficulty adapting to our culture, racial discrimination and loneliness. Pray for them to find God's grace in their lives.

- That many will hear God and turn to Him. He will be their Helper, Friend and Advocate. Coming to Singapore upps the probability of them hearing the gospel. God led them here for a reason.