S’poreans Wary Over Locating Workers’ Dorms In Heartlands, Netizen Says We Should Be Better Than That

Netizen Says Singaporeans Reject Migrant Workers, Despite Them Building Our Homes & Schools

Earlier this week, Minister for National Development Lawrence Wong announced that the Government will be building 11 new migrant worker dormitories in the next 2 years, hinting at the possibility of them being built closer to residential areas.

While the details of these plans have not been revealed yet, Mr Wong’s comments sparked a slew of feedback from Singaporeans, who criticised the potential move for a whole host of reasons.

Source

Critical comments compiled

On Tuesday (2 Jun), a netizen compiled a series of such comments in a Facebook post and called them out, saying we need to do better.

Source

S’poreans’ comments cover a wide range of concerns

The critical comments gathered by Mr Lim featured a wide variety of concerns.

Many had to do with fears that the residences near the dormitories would be hit by falling property prices.

Source

Another netizen also raised the possibility that the migrant workers would mingle with the domestic helpers living nearby.

Source

One other netizen was concerned about the safety of children.

Source

Migrant workers build our houses & schools but they’re rejected

Mr Lim did not hold back when responding to these comments, labelling them “racist” and “disgusting”.

He criticised these netizens saying that they are rejecting the migrant workers despite their contribution towards the nation — which includes building our houses and schools.

In his words,

You are the beneficiary of their hard work and yet you want them to be out of your sight and out of your mind?

Netizen says we should take a good look at our own actions

Referencing the #BlackLivesMatter and #AllLivesMatter movements, which stem from the death of an African-American man in the United States during an encounter with the police, Mr Lim noted that Singaporeans may be tempted to join in and express outrage.

However, he said that we should also look inwards at ourselves, and address racism in our own society.

As he ended his post, he urged Singaporeans to respect and appreciate our migrant workers, just like how we clap to show appreciation for our frontline workers.

Source

Let’s discuss the move objectively

While there might be merit to some of the criticisms expressed in the comments, we hope the building of migrant worker dormitories will ultimately be examined objectively, and that the discussions surrounding it will not be tainted by extreme views.

After all, we owe much of our nation’s progress and development to migrant workers, and the least we could do is to check whether we have baseless prejudice against them.

They’re part of our community too, and if they’re well taken care of, Singapore will be all the better for it.

Featured image adapted from ST Lodge.