Covid-19: migrant workers, first affected in Southeast Asia
Workers build dormitories to accommodate migrant workers, after a massive outbreak of cases among this community sleeping in overcrowded dormitories, Singapore on June 9, 2020. REUTERS - Edgar Su
Text by: Gabrielle Maréchaux Follow
5 mins
In Singapore and Malaysia, the coronavirus seems to affect certain populations in an unequal manner, with migrant workers in the front line.
While less than 1% of Singaporeans have been infected, half of those hard-pressed workers who live in overcrowded dormitories have been infected.
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From our correspondent in Kuala Lumpur,
It is a fragmented worldview that Singapore has never sought to hide.
Communicating daily on the evolution of the coronavirus pandemic, this small
Southeast Asian
state
has always given two figures in a row: one concerning the "
community
", that is to say Singaporeans, and one another for foreigners residing in this tiny island country in Southeast Asia.
A double standard which has proved problematic at the heart of the pandemic.
Singapore: a "gold standard" of the pandemic with record infections among migrants
The country quickly emerged as a model to follow, for example with
a study carried out by epidemiologists from Harvard University
considering
Singaporean tracing practices
as a “
gold standard
” of crisis management from February 2020.
But a few months later, the contaminations curve got dangerously crazy
in the country's dormitories
, where up to 25,000 migrant workers sometimes lived in a single building.
And it is with unfeigned surprise, that many inhabitants of the fourth most expensive city in the world then discovered the living conditions of this workforce, coming in particular from Bangladesh and India, and who built all the skyscrapers of this futuristic city, sums up Ethan Guo of the Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2) association: “
Most Singaporeans in their daily life have almost no contact with migrant workers. there are really two parallel worlds here.
"
Half of migrants infected, 0.25% among Singaporeans
If the authorities then pledged to pay more attention to the precarious living conditions of migrant workers, in particular by building new dormitories, the duality between the 300,000 migrant workers and Singaporeans still seems to be in place. year 2020. When the government, for example, sought to look at what percentage of its population had developed antibodies to Covid-19, it was able to observe on December 14 that
half of migrant workers had contracted the virus
, a figure is estimated to 0.25% in the rest of the population.
While social distancing measures are starting to ease for Singaporeans - with for example the possibility of meeting eight against five before - migrant workers are confined to remain confined in their dormitories, with rare exceptions.
explained the Minister of Manpower on Facebook
.
Dismissed for trying to alert on the situation in Malaysia
And Singapore does not seem to be the only country in the area to have underestimated the dangerousness of dormitories overcrowded with migrant workers in a time of a global pandemic.
In neighboring Malaysia
, this population known to practice occupations responding to "
the three D
": "
dirty, dangerous, difficult
" ("
dirty, dangerous and difficult
") is today the first affected by the virus.
At the end of November, the country indeed discovered
giant clusters in the factories manufacturing rubber gloves
around Kuala Lumpur.
More than 5,000 cases have since been identified, and as the number grew, devastating revelations followed about Top Glove.
The world leader in the sector is already banned from importing into the United States on suspicion of forced labor.
A Nepalese employee was
fired in September for trying to raise awareness
of the situation by taking photos of his overcrowded workplace.
Spotted by surveillance cameras, the whistleblower then had to pay $ 470 to return to his country and undergo a screening test on arrival.
Record profits for Top Glove
Three months later, as
the government
forced the glove maker to shut down many of its factories, a worker at a Top Glove subsidiary attempted to end his life in December in a 14-bed dormitory where 24 lived. people.
The number of contaminations in latex glove factories is becoming more and more worrying.
But one figure seemed even more impressive: that showing the radiant shape of profits made by the Top Glove company in these times of a global pandemic,
with quarterly net profits multiplied by 20
.
While an opposition deputy may have suggested that Top Glove's colossal profits this year be taxed significantly, the authorities have assured them that they are planning a legal action against the company because of the poor housing conditions of its workers.
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