S’pore says it doesn’t have serious trafficking problem
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S’pore says it doesn’t have serious trafficking problem
SGPOLITICS.NET
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Humanitarian Organization for Migration Economics (HOME) has also responded to the US Trafficking In Persons (TIP) report. View a copy of their report at the end of this blog post.
Source: Simeon Bennett, Bloomberg Businessweek
03 July 2010Singapore doesn’t have a serious human trafficking problem, its government said in a response to a U.S. State Department report that said the city-state had regressed in its battle against the practice.
The State Department last month put Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam on a watchlist of middle-tier countries for trafficking, one level above the worst offenders such as North Korea, Myanmar and Saudi Arabia. Singapore showed an “inadequate response” to sex trafficking with only two convictions last year, and didn’t prosecute anybody under its forced labor laws, the report said.
The report’s reliance on reported and prosecution figures was “superficial and perfunctory at best,” the government said in a six-page response received today by e-mail. The low numbers show that Singapore’s approach to combating trafficking in persons, or TIP, has been effective, it said.
“Different countries adopt different approaches and it is a matter of what works for each country,” the government said. “Singapore will continue with its calibrated and pragmatic approach to TIP issues, and review this if necessary, rather than blindly follow a one-for-all operating model just to achieve a better technical ranking on the US TIP Report.”
Singapore’s police conducted 2,600 anti-vice operations and arrested 7,614 women for suspected vice activities last year, compared with 1,400 operations and 5,047 arrests in 2008, according to the statement. A total of 476 employers were prosecuted for breaching their employment obligations, last year. Authorities investigated 32 cases of alleged trafficking, and prosecuted two, the government said.
“A low absolute number of reported and convicted cases is therefore no basis for concluding that Singapore has a serious TIP problem,” the government said. “Singapore takes a stern view of practices leading to the exploitation or abuse of vulnerable persons and we investigate and prosecute such offences vigorously.”
The Humanitarian Organization for Migration Economics (HOME)’s response to the US TIP report
4th July 2010
Your Excellency, Ambassador David Adelman
Embassy of the United States
27 Napier Road, Singapore 258508.Dear Ambassador
We take this occasion on your Independence Day, this 4th July 2010, to thank your government on your stand for the rights of domestic workers at the recent International Labor Conference (ILC) held in June in Geneva.
“The United States Government fully supports the adoption of a Convention and Recommendation on decent work for domestic workers. We look forward to the development of a robust Convention that can be widely ratified by member states, supplemented by a Recommendation that provides for useful guidance for effectively implementing the Convention. Such a proposed Convention on domestic workers might usefully be framed in the overall context of a call for member states to adopt, implement, and periodically review a national policy on domestic work aimed at improving the situation of domestic workers and promoting equality of treatment between domestic workers and other wage earners.”
- Michel Smyth, Acting Director of the Division of Interpretations and Regulatory Analysis for the United States Department of Labour’s Wage and Hour Division. Extract from US Opening statement at ILC 2010.
As a non-governmental organization in Singapore, we have been promoting the enhanced protection of migrant workers’ rights in Singapore. Among the 900, 000 migrant workers are some 200,000 domestic workers in Singapore. Though the majority appear ‘happy’ working in Singapore, we see over a 1000 cases of abuse and labour exploitation a year that is in need of our assistance. So it was really tremendous encouragement when your Mr. Michel Smyth of the US delegation at the International Labour Conference in Geneva, made a historic opening statement in support of decent work for domestic workers. Domestic workers around the world suffer discrimination and are not recognised as workers simply because they are working in an informal sector. In Singapore, they are denied the right to pregnancy, the right to a weekly rest day, the right to freedom of movement, among other violations of their dignity as persons.
We would like to thank your State too for the recent recommendations you made in your Trafficking in Persons Report 2010 on Singapore. We view these recommendations as useful insights into the human trafficking situation in our country and we are glad these were made public to our government. Over the last 6 years, we have worked with sex trafficked women who fled to us for safety and assistance. Though few in numbers – around 10 persons a year, we believe that they are representative of many others, who may have failed to escape from the traffickers. Hence, among the recommendations made, we wish to highlight your recommendation on enhanced victim protection measures. There could not be prosecutions, if victims are unwilling to be witnesses because of inadequate socio-economic support services and immunity from criminal prosecution.
“Singapore does not provide victims of sex or labor trafficking with legal alternatives to removal to countries where they may face hardship or retribution. The government did not provide positive incentives, such as immigration relief and legal aid, for foreign victims of trafficking to participate voluntarily in investigations and prosecutions of trafficking offenses. Identified victims were able to obtain work authorization while assisting with the prosecution of their traffickers, but some had difficulty in finding employment. When cases were being investigated or prosecuted, the government generally held the victims’ passports and declined their requests for repatriation.
Although victims are legally entitled to pursue civil cases against their traffickers, in practice, most foreign victims do not have the financial resources to do so”.
- Extract from US State Department Trafficking in Persons report 2010.
We, therefore, take the position, that Singapore like other ASEAN States — Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia – should enact an Anti Human Trafficking law and be signatory to the Palermo Protocol. There should also be the adoption of a multi stakeholders’ approach strategy to develop and implement a national plan to combat human trafficking, including especially, the training of police and enforcement officers on the identification of victims of sex and labor trafficking. Many victims, we believe, have been criminalized as immigration offenders and deported after serving imprisonment.
In Thailand, for example, I have personally observed how closely NGOs are engaged with the police authorities on addressing the needs of the victims of trafficking. In Taiwan, victims of human trafficking are allowed to work in cross sector jobs, allowing for job mobility. In Hong Kong, the maternity rights of the domestic worker are protected under the Employment Ordinance. In the Philippines, the Philippines Overseas Employment Administration mandates a standard contract for all Overseas Filipino Workers that provide for a cap on agency placement fees to an equivalent of one month’s salary, minimum wages and weekly rest days.
Singapore has indeed made some significant improvements, over the years, especially by the Ministry of Manpower, but there is still much that could be done on enforcement measures against human trafficking as defined by the Palermo Protocol. We recommend too that destination countries, like Singapore should have binding bilateral agreements with source countries to arrest ‘debt bondages’, contract substitutions, faked documents, forced repatriation and irregular migration. The transnational crimes against women and children are too horrendous for any State or persons not to exercise greater political will to end the flesh trade that rake billions for criminals.
We share the joy of the American people as you celebrate your Independence Day and as you share your freedom with those who are victims of modern slavery in this century.
Thank you America! Happy Birthday!
Warmest Wishes,Bridget Tan
President