What's a life worth?

This column was written for the Ex-Pat Files but not published.

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Singapore’s roads have become less safe, the reason being that I have bought a car. Just ask the lorry drivers who almost flattened me last week as I inadvertently chose the most perilous trajectory possible to negotiate the traffic circle where the AYE meets Pioneer Road North.

Apart from my shortened life-span, driving has its advantages. One disadvantage, however, is that I no longer receive my daily insights from one of Singapore’s voluble cabbies. Even though Murphy’s Law dictated that taxi drivers would be most chatty when I most wanted to read in peace and quiet, their conversation was rarely a true annoyance. Singapore’s cabbies are a rich source of information and an even richer source of opinions on everything from NEWater to durians to the government. They taught me a lot, and I miss their willing attempts to educate me.

But there was one regular occurrence during my taxi rides that I will not miss: looking straight ahead at the seat-back in front of me, I would read a small sign stating that my failure to use a seat belt was punishable by a $100 fine. I would then shift my eyes by a few degrees and catch sight of an open-backed lorry packed with foreign workers. They would not be using any seat belts for the simple reason that they had none.

Our respective vehicles would be traveling down the highway at 60 to 110 km per hour. I knew that if I had an accident, I might walk away with bumps and scratches. But if similar trouble befell them, their skin would hit the pavement at a speed sure to sever life from limb. I was white. They were dark. If they were uncomfortable sitting on a hard metal floor, I, in my cushioned, seat-belted and enclosed security, was more so.

After some months of wondering how the transport of workers in the backs of open trucks could be condoned by the modern society I took Singapore to be, the inevitable happened. In August of 2007 a group of workers was flung from the back of a truck resulting in serious injury and the loss of one life.

The outpouring of concern and indignation on the part of many Singaporeans was heartening. The official response was not. One explanation as to why workers were permitted to travel in this dangerous fashion began, “Sir, to reduce business costs…” I couldn’t believe what I was reading. This was an open affirmation that worker safety was actively subordinated to profits. And whether by design or otherwise, it was not the safety of Singaporeans that was devalued in this manner, but of foreigners.

Perhaps around that time, I began to pay more attention to reports on worker safety, or lack thereof. News stories of deaths on Singaporean construction sites and shipyards appeared with alarming frequency. Invariably, those who lost their lives were foreign born.

But it is perhaps the plights of maids -- servants from Indonesia, the Philippines, India and elsewhere -- that struck me most forcibly. Among the many stories of maid-abuse in Singapore, one is particularly stark. An employer, along with her family and friends, implemented a medieval litany of atrocities on an Indonesian maid that included the violent extraction of two of her teeth, pouring scalding water on her private parts, dumping hot wax on her head, clubbing her ear with an iron rod, and caning.

As appalling as this is, the so-called penalties suffered by the perpetrators are more so. The stiffest sentence handed out to date is 26 months in jail. Excuse me? Is this the same country that hangs drug traffickers? Something is seriously out of whack. If we must have the death penalty, then I suggest a swap: drug traffickers should be given 26 months in jail and anyone caught torturing a maid should swing at the end of a rope.

This disparity between crime and punishment is reinforced by a recent incident in which a maid fell to her death from an upper story flat after having been ordered to clean the windows in a manner that put her life at risk. The penalty? A $5,000 fine. A quick calculation suggests that, in Singapore, the life of a maid is worth a large flat-screen TV.

This is not the Singapore I meet day to day. It is not a reflection of the caring and conscientious Singaporeans I work with. So why is worker safety allowed to languish in the ditherings of this or that committee? If Singapore wishes to pride itself as a developed nation, it must resolutely place worker safety above economic considerations, and put some muscle in penalties for imperiling the mental and physical health of foreign workers. Otherwise, whatever the official line might be, the facts speak for themselves: If you are dark-skinned and a foreigner, go sit in the back of the truck.

Postscript
I wrote this piece in February, 2009. Three months later, on May 18th, four foreign workers riding in the open back of a truck were killed in a collision in the Tuas region of Singapore.



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