The threads that bind us
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The threads that bind us
We're all connected, even we we can't see it yet
The truth is, no one of us can be free until everybody is free. — Maya Angelou
This is a famous quote that I have often heard in social justice spaces or amongst activists.
The sentiment resonates with me — I think I’ve always had a vague sense that it doesn’t make sense for some of us to be free and others of us to be constrained, usually because of factors beyond our control.
As someone who loves travel, who travels a lot, who has interacted with hundreds of people from all around the world, I have often brushed up against this idea in terms of visas and border controls.
I hold a Singaporean passport. In 2023, it is the most powerful passport in the world, granting its holder (me) visa-free access to 192 destinations. On the other end of the spectrum, people who hold a passport from Afghanistan are permitted visa-free access to only 27 destinations.
Simply by virtue of where we were born, someone who shares identical or near identical characteristics as me faces a much more restrictive existence than I do.
To me, this makes no sense.
People are not their countries, people are not their governments.
Where you are born should not dictate how your life turns out.
And yet, it does.
Some of us are free, and some of us are not. By no action of our own, simply by the (mis)fortune of where we were birthed.
Truly, no one of us can be free while others are not.
I’m in the midst of reading Work Won’t Love You Back, by Sarah Jaffe. What drew me in was the title, but what I’ve read so far (Libby tells me I’m 42% in) has been enlightening and eye-opening in ways I would not have imagined.
In part of what I’ve read so far, Jaffe has discussed the family, domestic work, and caregiving. There was the usual conversation about how women bear the bulk of labor within the household - work that is (usually) not compensated and therefore not valued (as much).
I have reflected on some of my own experiences in this realm here (On Leisure and Labor) and here (The Vilification of Rest).
But what was particularly startling and revelatory to me was Jaffe’s exploration of the role of hired help within the home.
Many of us live in societies where domestic care workers are not unusual. Nannies, helpers, maids — they fulfill many roles within our households that allow the rest of us to fulfill other roles outside our households.
What Jaffe interestingly pointed out, is how often this labor is meant to be invisible so that the employer can feel like they are the do-er of the work. What this results in is that part of the job of the person performing this work is to become invisible.
Whether that’s making themselves scarce when company is over or staying out of sight, out of mind as much as possible, the result is the same - we tend to “forget” about these people who come into our homes, who sometimes live among us, and perform essential tasks in our households so that we, the employers, can feel “comfortable”.
Jaffe comments on this in the context of the US but as I was reading (listening to the audiobook on the MRT, if you really must know), I started thinking about how this shows up not just in the US, but also in Singapore…and how it plays out in the global context too.
Let’s dig into Singapore first.
There were over 268,000 migrant domestic workers in Singapore in December 2022. This means 1 in 5 Singaporean households employs someone who has left their home country (usually one of a handful of surrounding South East Asian countries) to work in a full-time position in their home.
Similar to the conditions that domestic care workers face in the US, these workers in Singapore are expected to be silent and invisible as much as possible.
They often face poor working conditions and are offered few protections.
Long hours, strenuous work — It is not uncommon for “maids” as they are referred to in Singapore to start their day as early as 5 am and only finish the day’s work at 11 pm. They may be given only 1 rest day a month and expected to perform heavy-duty tasks on a daily basis.
Low wages — 500-800 SGD is common for a month’s salary, roughly about 370- 600 USD. Singapore does not have a minimum wage, so some of these workers end up with an hourly wage of less than a dollar.
Poor food — It is not unusual for maids to only be allowed to eat after the rest of the family has eaten, sometimes resulting in them going hungry if there is not enough food prepared. In some cases, maids are even made to eat using separate plates and utensils different from the rest of the members of the household, sometimes sitting on the floor instead of at a table.
Uncomfortable accommodation — They are often also not provided with comfortable accommodations (windowless rooms barely large enough for a single bed, measuring 4.4m2 or less than 50 sqm) or lack privacy.
Restrictions on personal belongings — While not legal practice, some employers have been known to confiscate their helper’s phones, devices, and even passports.
Few avenues for recourse — In the event that the worker is unhappy or unsatisfied with her working conditions, she (these workers are overwhelmingly women) has few options available. Government policy overwhelmingly favors the employer, not the workers. Additionally, she has likely taken a large loan to come to work in Singapore that she has to find a way to pay off, which may be impossible if she returns to her home country. She may not know of avenues to seek help and may fear the repercussions of speaking out in such an asymmetrical power dynamic. In some cases, she may not even speak the language to navigate her exit.
Abuse — Cases of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse appear in the papers time and time again, with few safeguards in place to protect the worker. The actual number of such incidences is probably much higher than what gets reported, investigated, and highlighted in the news.
Yet, nothing much changes at a policy level to protect the rights of these migrant workers who perform such essential labor that ensures the country keeps running.
Indeed, it may be because they perform such essential labor that their rights are infringed and constricted in this way — imagine if there were a strike tomorrow and all migrant domestic workers simply refused to work. Life in Singapore would screech to a halt.
Luckily (for the people who employ these workers), strikes are illegal in Singapore.
There is no denying that Singapore is built on the exploitation of many of these workers. Yet, it does not occur to many Singaporeans that how they treat their domestic worker is not even close to the treatment they would think is acceptable for someone else, a Singaporean Chinese for instance.
Perhaps it is because they do not think of these domestic workers as being worthy of consideration and respect given to other people — perhaps it is because they do not think of these domestic workers as human at all?
If reading that last bit makes you uncomfortable, perhaps it is time you sit with the why, rather than jumping to defend yourself.
“Does your empathy come with conditions?” — Sharon Hurley Hall
As I continued listening to Jaffe narrating her book to me, my mind wandered from the maids treated as less than human to another vulnerable population in Singapore - migrant workers who labor in construction and other manual labor industries.
Similar to the maids in Singapore, migrant workers are treated very poorly.
These workers are excluded from Singapore’s labor laws, which opens up opportunities for exploitation by their employers.
The working hours of many of these workers are unregulated, as is the safety of the conditions in which they work. They live in hot, cramped, and overcrowded dormitories which makes them more susceptible to poor outcomes from outbreaks like COVID. Again, like in the case of foreign domestic workers, migrant workers are also subject to exploitative contracts and incur huge debts for the promise of work in Singapore, with little support if things go south.
Particular to the situation of migrant workers laboring at construction sites, one issue has come up repeatedly — the transportation of these workers in vehicles not meant for human transportation.
The Road Traffic Act outlines that goods vehicles (meant for carrying cargo) shall not be used to transport people, except if those people are working for the owner or hirer of the vehicle.
Ergo, people are people except when they are workers. In that case, they're cargo.
In the wake of multiple accidents that caused death and injury to migrant workers who were being transported in the open back of a lorry, the official government stance was to recite platitudes, but ultimately to prioritize profits over people.
“If the companies are unable to operate their businesses, there will be knock-on effects on society, including delays affecting new housing projects, polyclinics and MRT lines, as well as higher costs for all Singaporeans. — Statement from the authorities in Singapore, reported by national news agency Straits Times.
As a business owner myself, my stance is that if you are unable to operate your business without exploiting your workers and putting them in harm’s way, then your business should be shuttered.
But I digress.
Recently, this same national news agency published an opinion piece that suggested making lorries more comfortable for workers, rejecting the suggestion that they should be given allowances to take public transport instead. Their argument? Other commuters might be bothered by their smell after doing a day of hard labor in the sun.
It seems to me that as a society, we have allowed ourselves to start seeing migrant workers as less than human, which is why we allow ourselves to indulge in discussions about how to make a vehicle for cargo more suitable for humans and whether other commuters would be bothered by the smell of someone’s body odor.
Surely, if the workers in question were European or American, this wouldn’t even be a topic of discussion?
Yet, for migrant workers from India, China, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and other countries in the Global South, this is something we can debate.
1 million low-wage workers in Singapore are subject to such indignities.
For these 1 million low-wage workers, it is a daily question that we Singaporeans must answer — Are they human? And if they are, why do we treat them differently from other humans?
Reflecting on the situation of all low-wage migrant workers in Singapore, whether in the home or out, and how we, Singaporeans treat them — or what we have deemed is acceptable for them — taken alongside Jaffe’s commentary about domestic care workers in the US who have been encouraged to become invisible… I cannot help but wonder what the next stage will be.
It makes me think of the situation in Gaza, in Palestine. Of how the government of Israel is forcibly trying to make people there invisible —first by putting them behind literal walls, and now through media blackouts and bombs dropped on cell towers to cut off communications with the outside world.
Media coverage refers to Gaza as an “open-air prison” but none of the people there have been tried nor found guilty of any crime. Yet the term “prison” makes us think of the people within as prisoners — and perhaps it becomes easier to think of them as less than human?
Do they hope that if we do not see them, if we do not see the horrible videos of parents clutching the bodies of their babies and wailing, if we do not witness the sheer pain and terror of Palestinians fighting to simply exist — if they became invisible, we would not remember them?
Do they hope that if we are convinced they are criminals, these children of Palestine, that we would start thinking of them as less than human? That we would condone these atrocities being carried out?
I fear for all of our humanity.
We are collectively allowing terrible things to be carried out across the world in big and small ways — from Palestine to Sudan, from Somalia to Burma, from Sudan to even, yes, Singapore.
We are all tied to one another. Our oppression, our freedom.
I grieve.
In the past few years, I’ve been investing more time, energy, and effort in expanding my understanding of inequality, inequity, discrimination, and various systems of oppression.
And there is still much to be learned.
Yet, perhaps we do not have to wait to learn every single possible thing there is to know before we act.
The various systems of oppression we live under continue to kill, maim, pilfer, and destroy while good people hem and haw and stop themselves from speaking up or taking action under the guise of “but I don’t know enough!”
Both things can be true.
We can continue the journey of learning, AND we can take action against oppressors.
I’m doing both. What will you do?
Sending you so much love, as my tiny act of resistance against the tremendous amount of hate we are witnessing,
Crunch
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