Riot was not due to unhappiness among foreign workers
Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Saturday said there is no reason to believe the Little India riot — the city-state’s worst outbreak of violence in over 40 years for which 33 Indians have been charged — was due to unhappiness among foreign workers.
Sunday’s incident was “spontaneous” and the migrant workers involved were employed by a variety of companies and lived in different places, he told reporters in Tokyo on the sidelines of a summit.
Around 400 South Asian migrant workers were involved in the rampage that left 39 police and civil defence staff injured and 25 vehicles damaged.
Thirty-three Indian nationals have so far been arrested and charged in court for alleged rioting.
Riot forces Singapore to take fresh look at foreign workers
A riot by South Asian labourers has forced Singapore to take a fresh look at how it deals with the presence of low-paid foreign workers in the wealthy city-state.
Singapore has a total population of 5.4 million, but only 3.84 million are citizens and permanent residents.
Out of the foreign population of 1.55 million, about 700,000 are work-permit holders employed in construction and other sectors shunned by Singaporeans, with more than 200,000 others working as domestics.
Shelley Thio, an activist with aid group Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2), said the suggestion that alcohol was the main cause of the violence was a "knee-jerk reaction".
"You have expatriates of various ethnicities inebriated at the pubs and bars in town on weekend nights, but you don't see them rioting on the streets," she told AFP.
According to TWC2, migrant workers in Singapore face a multitude of problems, including mistreatment by employers and poor living conditions.
The median pay of a construction worker is S$900 a month, according to official data, but many of them are heavily in debt to recruiters back home and their Singaporean partners.
The Little India riot occurred a year after a work stoppage by Chinese bus drivers demanding higher pay from a state-linked transport company, the first industrial strike in the island since 1986.
This is the first time Indian national Sasik Kumar experienced an alcohol ban.
"Just because of a few people who caused trouble, the rest of us have to be inconvenienced like this?" asked the safety supervisor, who rents a room on Race Course Road.
He was having dinner and beers with friends at the Berseh Food Centre on Jalan Besar, which is just outside the banned area.
Following last weekend's alcohol ban, the authorities will be reviewing what to do next.
It is unclear if the ban will be extended.
Engaging Foreign Workers with Project FORWARD!
Project Foreign Workers Awareness and ReaDiness (FORWARD) is an ongoing initiative by Ang Mo Kio Police Division aimed at engaging the foreign worker community residing within the division’s jurisdiction. It was first launched in November last year.
The next phase of Project FORWARD was launched by AC Keok Tong San, Commander, Ang Mo Kio Police Division, on 15 December at Singapore Contractors Association Limited Dormitory (Kim Chuan).
The event, organized by Hougang NPC was conducted in the form of a road show with exhibition booths from the Home Team and also included the presentation of certificates to Foreign Worker Ambassadors. These Foreign Workers ambassadors are deemed as peer leaders in the foreign worker community who have volunteered their services as liaison officers for the Home Team.
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