Migrant workers' dramatic quest for equality

FE Team | Published: August 11, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

Kalinga Seneviratne
For 12 years Siti Muyasaroh slaved as an underpaid and overworked housemaid in this affluent South-east Asian nation. Still, during that time, she completed a nursing aid course and acquired a diploma in business English from a British university.
Now back home in Indonesia and employed as an office worker, Siti and other exploited migrnat workers like her are making an attempt to change the Singaporean mindset -- that maids are stupid, uneducated girls from poor neighbouring countries who do not deserve equal treatment -- through theatre.
'Tales Within Borders,' a one-hour drama staged at the Asian Civilisation Museum auditorium last weekend by a local volunteer welfare group 'Migrant Voices' in collaboration with Singapore Drama Educators Association (SDEA), is an attempt by Singapore's fledgling community theatre movement to address sensitive social issues that the popular teledrama industry shies away from.
Singapore, one of Asia's richest nations on a per capita basis, has over half-a-million foreign workers in a population of just four million. About 160,000 of them are domestic help (maids), who mainly come from Indonesia, the Philippines and Sri Lanka. Most of the male migrant workers come from Bangladesh, India, Thailand, Indonesia and lately China, working in the construction industry and also as cleaners and other unskilled jobs.
Though seen everywhere, they are not considered part of the regular community. When they congregate on their Sunday off days in this crowded city-state, many locals see them as a nuisance. Some maids are denied their day off because their employers fear they may get pregnant.
Tales Within Borders is an attempt to present migrant workers as an integral part of society. "We wanted to present them as one of us. They tell their inner feelings, their dreams, their aspirations," explained Nina Siew, co-director of the play.
One of the actors Jeganath Thangamani from India, who has been working here as a construction worker for the past six years, talks about his inner feelings of how foreign workers are treated through the script of a conversation with a fellow worker in one of the scenes. He even plays a solo bamboo flute number, having learnt to play the instrument at an Indian fine arts school for over three years which he attends on his weekly off days.
Sha Najak, president of Migrant Voices, says the organisation was set up in an attempt to provide recreational avenues for migrant workers here. "(Through this play) we want to spread the message that foreign workers have talents and they should be allowed a platform to show these talents, express themselves,'' she told IPS.
Seven members of the cast of nine are migrant workers, four of them maids from Indonesia. "It is true we are rural people, but we need to get experience and knowledge while in Singapore. I may not be educated but my brain works and I want to learn. I get upset when people say we don't need off days to go out," Suprihatin Suwito, who has worked here for 9 years as a maid, said in an interview. She has certificates in computer skills, hairdressing, first-aid, dressmaking and massage. "Fortunately my employer allowed me to go out on Sundays and I was able to do all these courses,'' she added.
On stage she acts the part of a harassed maid. Her employer, a woman in office attire, constantly nags her. In one scene Najak turns towards the audience and asks why her employer uses her toes to indicate objects. ''Hasn't she got a hand to do it?"
It is inconsiderate attitudes like these that the play tries to explore. Jolovan Wham, executive director of Humanitarian Organisation for Migrant Economics (HOME), a local NGO which helps migrant workers, hears such stories daily. He too acts in the play in the role of a construction site foreman who is inconsiderate towards his Indian workers when they complain about the food provided and illnesses.
"These are the sentiments I have heard from employers and employment agents for the past 3 years,'' he said as he stepped off the stage. "The agents need to open communications with the workers, not scold them."
Wham thinks that employers' behaviour may be influenced by ''racism and superior attitudes towards certain foreigners."
"Agents should put standards (of behaviour) to employers, but they don't do it, because it depends on who they prefer to have a conflict with and it is easier to pick on foreign workers. It's a game of power,'' argues John Gee, president of the migrant worker support group Transient Workers Centre, a co-sponsor of the drama.
"Discrimination is the word, everybody looks down on maids and migrant workers. We feel strongly about it. This is seen everywhere and we want others to know about it," Siti told IPS.
Siti has recently taken up an office job in Indonesia using her Business English diploma and she is back in Singapore on a social visit pass to act in the play as her last hurrah here. Wham says that the media here has been receptive in reporting on the problems that migrant workers face, such as salaries not being paid or outright abuse - though the stories are seldom told from the workers' perspective.
"Unless you allow them to tell their own stories, because they are foreign and of a different race, all these add to the kind of negative stories we often get to hear about migrant workers,'' Wham argues.
------
IPS