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Balli Kaur Jaswal

Even as far as WhatsApp chain messages go, this one was egregious: “20,000 foreign workers are now quarantined in several large dormitories. If only 2 per cent are infected, they will infect onwards their maid girlfriends. We’re talking 400 infected households.”
The calculations continued exponentially to prophesise a catastrophic spread of Covid-19 in Singapore’s schools, workplaces and churches, all starting with foreign workers.
The message, circulating among my relatives a few weeks ago, made no predictions about the living conditions that would lead to a crisis of this proportion. The focus was on social habits rather than the cramped dormitories, where 20 men reportedly sleep in one room and safe distancing is not an option.
Since Singapore closed schools and non-essential businesses earlier this month, separate daily tallies of new Covid-19 cases show rising rates of infection in dormitories and much lower figures in the wider community. Initially lauded for its swift response to the virus, the government came in for criticism for overlooking the living conditions of 1.3 million workers in essential services such as construction, transport and sanitation.


Singapore owes much of its economic success to a low-paid workforce from countries like India and Bangladesh, who build our glittering centrepieces but live on society’s periphery. As the pandemic places a grim spotlight on these workers, prevailing racist attitudes are also on full display.
A letter published in the national Chinese-language broadsheet squarely blamed foreign workers’ living habits for spreading the virus. “Many of them come from backward countries,” the writer claimed. “They like to gather and have poor personal hygiene. Aren’t migrant workers themselves responsible for this state they’re in now?”
Home Affairs and Law Minister K. Shanmugam slammed the letter for being insensitive and xenophobic. “We are bigger than the sentiments expressed in that letter,” he said. But you only have to dip your toe in the shallow waters of social media to see that such sentiments are common here.
On race, Singaporeans must open their eyes at home to thrive abroad
When the coronavirus first arrived in Singapore in late January, the culprits were also outsiders. A taxi driver cheerfully told me he was no longer picking up passengers with mainland Chinese accents. The bias shifted fleetingly to European tourists after Italy and Spain began reporting record numbers.
There was outrage and concern when a Chinese-Singaporean student in London was beaten up in a xenophobic attack, but with little sense of irony, the search for a foreign scapegoat continued here. Then our borders closed, so we looked inward, landing conveniently on the country’s most vulnerable population.
Foreign domestic workers – the “maid girlfriends” from the WhatsApp message – were the first group in Singapore to experience a taste of lockdown conditions two weeks before the government implemented a nationwide “circuit breaker” to curb a second wave of infections.


As the employer of an Indonesian nanny, I received an email advisory from the government urging me to keep her at home on her days off. The fear was that these women, who keep Singaporean homes clean, would practise poor hygiene nonetheless, and spread the virus at their weekend gatherings. On the other hand, I was still trusted to move freely and comply with safe distancing measures.
The distinction between foreign workers and citizens has always existed in our systems, but the deepening societal divisions are worrying. Recently, several neighbours chided our nanny for letting my toddler take off his face mask while they were out on a walk.
“Ask them to try to keep a mask on a two-year-old then,” I said. She is known to sharply face down this kind of citizen policing – last year, a woman threatened to report her for negligence because my son was running around outside barefoot. “What would the mother say?” the woman asked, to which our nanny replied, “She would tell you to shut up.”
This time though, she just cut the walk short and hurried home. “Nowadays,” she said, “it’s better not to argue.”
Balli Kaur Jaswal's novel Sugarbread, a multigenerational story about racism in Singapore, was shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize in 2018


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Rise in coronavirus cases brings to light Singaporeans’ racist attitudes towards foreign workers

A foreign worker wearing a mask looks out from the North Coast Lodge foreign worker dormitory in Singapore on April 17. The government has been criticised for overlooking the living conditions of 1.3 million workers in essential services such as construction, transport and sanitation. Photo: EPA-EFE

How did migrant worker dormitories become Singapore’s biggest coronavirus cluster?

Migrant workers in their room at the WestLite Toh Guan dormitory in Singapore. Photo: EPA

(200409) -- SINGAPORE, April 9, 2020 (Xinhua) -- A foreign worker waits to get medical check near the Toh Guan Dormitory in Singapore on April 8, 2020. Singapore confirmed 142 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, a new daily record, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said in its daily update. Of these, 140 are local cases and two are imported, bringing the total number of cases in the state to 1,623 since the first case was reported on Jan. 23. (Ministry of Manpower Singapore/Handout via Xinhua)

Infections surge in Singapores migrant worker dormitories

epaselect epa08368055 A labourer wearing a mask looks out from the North Coast Lodge foreign worker dormitory in Singapore, 17 April 2020. According to reports, on 16 April the country reported its largest spike in COVID-19 cases, most of which were from existing virus clusters in foreign worker dormitories. EPA-EFE/WALLACE WOON

epa08368059 A dormitory block, housing foreign workers, at the North Coast Lodge foreign worker dormitory in Singapore, 17 April 2020. According to reports, on 16 April the country reported its largest spike in COVID-19 cases, most of which were from existing virus clusters in foreign worker dormitories. EPA-EFE/WALLACE WOON

How Singapore can draw the right lessons from the coronavirus crisis

Migrant workers wait for meals in Little India district in Singapore. The outbreak of Covid-19 in foreign worker dormitories was predicted and is a mistake Singapore must learn from. Photo: Reuters

A man wearing a face mask as a preventive measure against the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus walks in the Raffles Place financial business district in Singapore on April 14, 2020. (Photo by ROSLAN RAHMAN / AFP)

A man wearing a face mask as a preventive measure against the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus walks next to commercial buildings in the Raffles Place financial business district in Singapore on April 14, 2020. (Photo by ROSLAN RAHMAN / AFP)

Migrant workers wearing face masks walk through Little India district as the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues in Singapore, April 14, 2020. REUTERS/Edgar Su TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

epa08358783 Beach goers crowd Repulse Bay beach in Hong Kong, China, 12 April 2020. Doctors in Hong Kong have warned that a new wave of coronavirus infections could hit the island as mainland Chinese cities woke from their economic slumber after months of lockdown. EPA-EFE/JEROME FAVRE

Men look out from the balcony of a dormitory used by foreign workers at Cochrane Lodge 2, which has been made an isolation area to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus, in Singapore on April 15, 2020. - Singapore won praise for keeping its outbreak in check in the early stages of the fight against the COVID-19 novel coronavirus but has seen a surge in cases this month, with many linked to foreign workers' dormitories. (Photo by ROSLAN RAHMAN / AFP)

epa08338309 A man wearing a protective mask walks past the financial district in Singapore, 02 April 2020. Singapore has reported more than 1000 cases of patients infected with the SARS-Cov-2 novel coronavirus, which causes the Covid-19 disease, and 4 deaths. According to Singapore Health Minister Gan Kim Yong, the number of locally transmitted and unlinked cases of COVID-19 in Singapore is increasing. The government has implemented more stringent social distancing measures and issued an advisory against non-essential visits to shopping malls and other public spaces. EPA-EFE/WALLACE WOON

The race riots remain Singapore’s biggest bogeyman. It’s time to have an honest discussion about prejudice

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A sex worker in Wan Chai, Hong Kong. File photo

A sex worker with a client in Faridpur's concrete building Town brothel. Photo / Miguel CANDELA

Sex workers stand in a largely shut-down red light area in Bangkok, Thailand, Thursday, March 26, 2020. A month-long state of emergency has been enforced in Thailand to allow its government to impose stricter measures to control the coronavirus that has infected hundreds of people in the Southeast Asian country. The new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people, but for some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness or death. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)

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An interior view of a brothel room in the King Hing Building in Mong Kok. Police have arrested 101 suspected sex workers, including 17 Russians and seven Thai transgender women in the building where flats had been illegally subdivided into more than 100 cubicles converted into brothel rooms. 30JAN18 SCMP / Edward Wong

A flat occupied by prostitutes working in one-woman brothels in Kowloon City. A new redevelopment project by the Urban Renewal Authority covers 16 old tenements on Kowloon City Road, in which eight flats are subdivided and occupied by one-woman brothels.

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The spread of the virus among its migrant workers living in cramped conditions has touched off a wave of blame and scapegoating in society, never mind that Singapore owes its success to this huge low-paid workforce providing many essential services



The spread of the virus among its migrant workers living in cramped conditions has touched off a wave of blame and scapegoating in society, never mind that Singapore owes its success to this huge low-paid workforce providing many essential services.


Singapore

Coronavirus pandemic

Coronavirus pandemic: All stories

Disease

Human rights

Coronavirus Singapore

Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


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