Human trafficking in Singapore

According to the U.S. Government's Trafficking in Person's (TIP) Report, Singapore is a destination country for foreign victims trafficked for the purpose of labor and commercial sexual exploitation. Over the years, victims of trafficking in Singapore have come from many countries throughout Asia such as India, Thailand, the People’s Republic of China, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Cambodia, Vietnam, Burma and Malaysia. Many of these people travel to Singapore voluntarily for work in different industries such as construction, manufacturing, or commercial sex. The use of deception about working conditions, debt bondage, the unlawful confiscation of travel documents, confinement and/or physical or sexual abuse is utilized by traffickers to force victims into involuntary servitude. The U.S. TIP Report also notes a small  quantity of Singaporeans engaging in and/or promoting child sex tourism abroad. The U.S. State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons placed the country in Tier 1 in 2020.

Prevalence

The Tier 1 ranking of Singapore in the 2020 and subsequent 2021 U.S. TIP Reports denotes the Singaporean government’s compliance with international standards to reduce and prevent human trafficking in the country. This ranking means that the Singaporean government sufficiently complies with the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000’s minimum standards. With the first TIP Report being done in the year 2001, Singapore’s progress has been tracked over the past 20 years and human trafficking in the country remains a prevalent activity in many forms. Although sex trafficking often takes center stage in conversations around human trafficking activities in Singapore, labor trafficking is a widespread issue in the country. However, due to years of ineffective systems of victim identification, those who may have displayed indicators of being victim to labor trafficking were not handled as such. This resulted in many labor offenses being investigated under the country’s Employment of Foreign Manpower Act (EFMA) rather than their Prevention of Human Trafficking Act (PHTA) that was passed on March 1, 2015. Victims of sex trafficking face some of the same hurdles as victims of labor trafficking when it comes to identification and proper investigation of their cases. The frequent use of repatriation companies by abusive employers has meant that many victims do not get the chance to find retribution within the legal system of Singapore. These companies are called upon by guilty employers to force repatriation on trafficking victims seeking legal redress. As noted in the U.S. TIP Reports, there also exists a small presence of Singaporean citizens taking part in child sex tourism abroad whether as consumers or facilitators.

Types of Trafficking

Both labor and sex trafficking occur in different forms within Singapore. As noted in all of the U.S. TIP Reports, many of those who fall victim to trafficking are initially voluntary migrants to Singapore for work opportunities in the many different industries in the country. However, upon arrival and locating jobs, deception by employers regarding working conditions and the use of other coercive strategies lead to conditions that would constitute trafficking. These other coercive strategies can include, but are not limited to, debt bondage, the illegal withholding of employees’ travel documents and pay, and the restriction of employees’ movement by way of intimidation and/or physical abuse. Agencies that are responsible for recruiting employees can also play a role as some take part in imposing fees on workers over the legalized maximum amounts and also the unlawful practice of contract switching.

Labor Trafficking

Singapore relies on the labor of foreign migrant workers to aid in running its many industries. However, according to the 2021 U.S. TIP Report on Singapore, “Some of the 848,200 foreign work permit holders who comprise almost one-quarter of Singapore’s labor force are at risk of trafficking.” The abuses of workers can begin before they leave their home country. Contracts that are entered into abroad or the payment of exorbitant fees to recruitment agencies at home make foreign workers susceptible to trafficking through misrepresentation of working conditions and debt bondage. These issues also occur once workers arrive in Singapore. There have been documented cases of abuse of the work permit sponsorship system in Singapore that gives employers undue power over the legal status of migrant workers as well as the ability to “the ability to repatriate workers legally at any time during their contracts with minimal notice.” There is little distinction between industries when it comes to the possibility of trafficking. Women migrant workers can become susceptible to trafficking when traveling to Singapore for employment within the entertainment industry. In the 2011 U.S. TIP Report there was a noted increase in reporting of victims experiencing forced labor on long-haul fishing boats that dock in Singapore. Over the years there have also been an abundance of instances of employer abuse of domestic workers, an industry that is dominated by migrant workers So much so that in September of 2014, the Burmese government prohibited the legal migration of Burmese citizens to Singapore to do domestic work due to concerns over working conditions. The Singaporean government’s efforts to address this problem have improved over the years. Under the PHTA, the government made their first labor trafficking conviction in late 2019.

Sex trafficking

Main article: Sex trafficking in Singapore

With prostitution being legal in Singapore, many foreign women are attracted to the country to participate in the commercial sex industry. It is not an uncommon occurrence that women voluntarily travel to Singapore to participate in this regulated labor sector. However, through the same forms of coercion used by labor traffickers, women can fall victim to sex trafficking. The operation of brothels is permitted in Singapore and these can be sites for trafficking activities that leave victims hidden in plain sight. In the 2004 U.S. TIP Report it was noted that the estimated number of girls and women trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation is small but greater than 100 annually. This is the same year that it was indicated that Singapore has a significant trafficking problem.

Extent

The Singaporean Government follows the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which works with other pre existing trafficking laws and makes benefits available to victims of trafficking. Some of these laws are the Women's Charter, Children and Young Persons' Act, and the Penal code. The Women's Charter is an act "to provide for monogamous marriages and for the solemnization and registration of such marriages; to amend and consolidate the law relating to divorce, the rights and duties of married persons, the protection of family, the maintenance of wives and children and the punishment of offences against women and girls; and to provide for matters incidental thereto". The Children and Young Persons' Act protects the welfare, care and protection of children and young persons by making homes safe and any other laws protecting children and young persons are consolidated within this act.

Prosecution

The codes already in effect in Singapore have a series of consequences. The Prevention of Human Trafficking Act which took effect on 1 March 2015 makes all forms of human trafficking illegal and has penalties of up to 10 years in jail, fines up to 100,000 Singapore dollars and caning up to 6 strokes. Some other consequences include even more fines along with the initial fine of trafficking. As the first case of imprisonment under the Act, Muhammad Khairulanwar bin Rohmat, a 25-year-old final-year student at the Singapore Institute of Management (SIM), was found guilty and sentenced on 19 February 2016 of four charges of recruiting a child for sexual exploitation, receiving payment from this exploitation, and sexual penetration of a minor, alongside 14 charges that were taken into consideration. He was sentenced to six years and three months’ jail and fined S$30,000.

Prevention

The Singaporean government's Ministry of Manpower tries to give out prevention information and raise awareness of trafficking. The Ministry of Manpower prints information on employee's rights and police hotline numbers, and mails newsletters with employee's rights on it to deter trafficking.