Singapore has laws to protect foreign workers’ rights but citizens also have a responsibility to be kind and humane towards them, said Professor Chan Heng Chee yesterday.
Most people here already have a sense of decency, she said in opening remarks at a migrant workers’ group event, and would help strangers in need and not begrudge the Government helping the poor and elderly.
This attribute should be cultivated and extended to how migrant workers are treated, according to Prof Chan, who is Singapore’s Representative to the Asean Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights.
“It should not be the law that forces us to do so. We should treat them well, feed them adequately, allow rest time, and abuse of workers should be ruled out,” she said in an opening speech at an event organised by the Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics, or Home.