Domestic workers, like all employees, are entitled to their rest, in accordance with human rights standards and acceptable working standards in Singapore.

AWARE welcomes the news that Minister of State for Community Development, Youth and Sports Halimah Yacob believes the State should consider legislation that makes employers give their domestic helpers a rest day every week.

It is not surprising that this issue has been keenly debated on the Internet and newspaper forum pages over the past week.

As stated in AWARE’s latest Shadow Report for the United Nations’ Convention On The Elimination Of All Forms Of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), there were around 190,000 migrant women working as foreign domestic workers in Singapore in 2010. That amounts to about one foreign domestic worker in every five households, and nearly 4% of Singapore’s total population.

Singapore NGOs estimate that almost half of these domestic workers do not get a regular day off. Some agencies advocate no days off at all and the practice of helping employers evade the necessity of giving workers a day off is widespread. There are many employers who cite their fear of losing their security bond, as well as their need for a helper seven days a week.

AWARE affirms that foreign domestic workers, like all employees, are entitled to their rest, in accordance with human rights standards and acceptable working standards in Singapore. The need for a day off and adequate rest time should not be dependent upon the needs and requirements of others, but should fall within her rights as a human being.

It is our view that foreign domestic workers here are inadequately protected by current legislation.

Paragraph 11.47 of the State’s Fourth Periodic Report to CEDAW states that foreign domestic workers are encouraged to enter into contracts with their employers and that this provides sufficient legal protection for these workers.

Singapore was among 63 countries which abstained from voting on the new International Labour Organisation convention that was approved last week in Geneva to grant domestic workers greater protection from exploitation. The Ministry of Manpower has said it would sign the treaty only when it was sure it could implement it here, and that it would continue to review the rights and responsibilities of employers and workers.

AWARE believes that foreign domestic workers do not have sufficient bargaining power to negotiate their own terms and conditions of employment and are in need of protection just like any other worker. By excluding them from the ambit of employment protection, the State is being discriminatory against foreign domestic workers and their work.

We fully support the Day Off Campaign jointly organised by the National Committee of UNIFEM Singapore, the Humanitarian Organization for Migration Economics, and Transient Workers Count Too.

Launched in 2008, this public education campaign encourages employers in Singapore to voluntarily give their domestic worker a day off.

The campaign stresses that giving foreign domestic workers a day off is important because:

• It is a basic labour right.
• It will improve the domestic worker’s morale and productivity, thus enhancing the employer-employee working relationship.
• It will give foreign domestic workers the opportunity to learn new skills and empower them as individuals.
• Foreign domestic workers are productive individuals who make an extremely valuable contribution to Singaporean society and like all other workers, they should be accorded a day off.

The campaign also points out that in the current standard contract, the number of days off vary in terms and conditions, with some guaranteeing one day off a week and others giving employers the option to choose only one day off a month.

Current provisions for rest days in these contracts are difficult to enforce because if there is a breach, a domestic worker will need to hire a lawyer to assist her in her claim. This option is not only costly, but daunting. Such contracts also allow employers to completely deny a domestic worker her day off in exchange for a sum of $15 to $20, which hardly leads to any real increase in the domestic worker’s salary. This is unfair to the worker.

Please check out http://dayoff.sg to find out more about this campaign, and how you can lend your support. The website also offers stories and tips on giving your domestic worker a day off and addresses many common concerns that employers have about giving a day off.