As the sink revived a discussion on the rights of migrant workers in Singapore

When there was a deep sink on 3m (10 feet) on a busy Singapore road that swallowed Black Mazud, a group of workers on a nearby construction site arose.

Grabbing the rope from their work site, they threw it into the sink, the female driver, which still left the car.

In five minutes, they managed to bring her to security.

“I was scared, but every feeling (sic) was that this woman should be rescued in the first place,” – told reporters, which was first and foremost, “said the foregun of the construction site of Supeiha.

Personnel about the incident quickly became viral in social media, and many welcomed workers as heroes.

Mr. Udayppan – “Migration Worker” is a term used in Singapore to describe 1.17 million workers who come to a wealthy city of low -income countries such as Bangladesh, India and Myanmar.

The vast majority of them are working low -paid and time -consuming work that Singapores avoid.

This is not the first time that migrant workers served the first respondents to save life in Singapore. In April, four of them helped save the children who were trapped after the fire.

Their recent actions have revived the right-albo discussion their absence-workers with low wages in Singapore.

Singapore’s fast -growing economy is built on the backs of these workers, which make up almost three quarters of the country’s foreign labor force. Many of them work in sectors such as construction, marine shipping and production

While there is no minimum wage in Singapore, workers earn only $ 300 ($ 233; £ 175) per month according to propaganda groups, and they live in crowded hostels that are often located from residential areas.

However, they are often abused by the recruitment agencies and their employers, including overload, unpaid work and poor living conditions. These issues are well documented, but the activists say it has changed little over the years.

“You celebrate them today. Tomorrow you will return to the generalization of them as reading, liars and dirty,” the Social Worker Social Kumar wrote in Instagram in response to the incident from the sink.

During the COVID pandemic in 2020, their living conditions were naked after the hostels in the workers appeared as an agma of the virus, and hundreds of workers test positive daily.

This provoked a public discussion about their terms – which the lawyers have warned for decades – and the authorities later took measures to improve the standards of the hostel.

Another sustainable question on which the incident in the sink again threw attention to is the use of trucks with flat beds for crossing these workers.

“There is something acute poetic in that migrant workers who were probably transported to the back of trucks came out of their way to save the Singapore in their car,” said Mr. Kumar, who is a member of the rights.

Singapore laws prohibit people from traveling on the cargo decks of such trucks – with the exception of emergencies. But it is allowed when they work as owners of truck.

Sometimes as many as 12 workers are packed into the back of a truck with a flat bed without seat belts. This is an economic option for many employers who also use trucks to transport goods.

But this has led to many accidents that are related to death.

In April 2021, two foreign workers were killed and more than a dozen were injured after a truck in which they crashed into a fixed truck with a flat bed.

In 2024, at least four workers were killed and more than 400 were injured in similar accidents.

Activists have long lobbied to ban this way of transport – it was also discussed again in the parliament – but it has changed little.

The Singapore government has repeatedly stated that although it encourages companies to transport employees by bus, an open ban on such trucks is impossible for small businesses.

“Many of them may be forced to close, forcing workers, both local and foreign, to lose their jobs,” the senior minister said in February.

“It will also delay for critical projects such as (public housing), schools, hospitals and (trains) lines, and will lead to more costs on Singapores.”

Activists criticize the authorities for reducing the rights of workers to simple economic considerations, noting that other countries, which are largely relying on migrant workers, including the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, banned transporting people on trucks.

Mr. Kumar can be used to subsidize other transport methods without transferring costs to businesses and consumers.

Government’s rhetoric “retains the status of -kua (and) puts disproportionate power in the hands of employers, for the life and livelihood of working migrants,” said Jay Anil Kumar, a senior researcher of the humanitarian organization on the migration economy, another organization that stands for migrants’ rights.

The call for a ban on trucks is just one in the list of changes that lawyers call on, which include wages, stronger protection against applications and subsidized medical care.

Despite the decades of the decades of their lives Singapore, these workers also have no opportunity to delay the roots with the type of work permit that they differ from foreign professionals and executives.

They cannot claim permanent residence, no matter how long they worked in the country. For example, Mr. Udajappan, who ruled the sink’s efforts over the weekend, has been working here for 22 years.

The owners of the work permit also require a state permit for marriage with the Singaporets – another problem that the activists have been nominated for years.

“Legislative changes were slow because there was insufficient political will to take effective changes,” said Ms. Anil Kumar.

Earlier this week, the authorities presented seven workers who participated in the rescue of the sink with commemorative coins, and the minister described their actions as “a very good example of how migrant workers help the society as a whole.”

But many criticized this step as tokenism.

“No” thanks “for their heroism should not justify the exploitation economic model, which every day depresses them to support the life we live in Singapore,” Mr. Kumar said.

Many repeated these thoughts about social, saying that men deserved more recognition. Some urged them to receive cash rewards and even permanent residence.

The Singapore Ministry of Labor said in a statement to the BBC that “it is recommended to receive feedback with a call for more thanks” for migrant workers, but does not appeal to specific proposals.

“Their everyday acts of assistance and courage deserve to be recognized and celebrated as part of the one who we are,” the ministry’s press -secretary said in response to requests.

Migrant rights group. Rain cloaks raised $ 72,000 ($ 55,840; £ 41,790) from its own fundraising that will be divided equally among seven men.

“So many times we have seen these migrants risking their own lives to save many citizens, including children, from dangerous situations,” said AKM Mohsin, which manages the Bangladesh workers’ work center in Central Singapore.

“They make news and are considered excellent examples of humanitarian work, but their own humanity and human rights are constantly being violated in their workplaces, how they are transported and how they live,” said Mr. Mohsin.

However, over the years, there has been increased awareness around workers of migrants.

The proposal groups and the government organized events that unite workers and the broad community.

For example, Mr Mosin rules a place for migrants to write, dance and play music – Singapores helped translate and publish their works, and often provide the audience for their performances.

But some activists say that most in the country still see migrant workers as a class that is and inferior to the local community.

Many live and work in industrial areas that are often away from residential regions of the city.

In 2008, about 1400 residents in the Serungun gardens, the upper middle-class neighborhood, asked for the construction of a migrant hostel near their houses.

To place them, the authorities reduced the size of the hostel and built a separate road for the workers to access the hostel.

“We mostly view them as another class of people. We expect them to be serviced, and we believe that this is the reason they are here,” said Alex AS, Vice -President of Transitional Group.

“Servants must jump to the rescue of their masters.”