The following is the response from the Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics (HOME) to the Ministry of Manpower’s (MOM) statement on the Facebook posting by HOME’s executive director, Mr Jolovan Wham.
You can read Mr Wham’s posting here, and MOM’s statement here.
The statement by HOME:
3rd October 2012
HOME’s response to MOM’s comments
HOME is pleased that NGOs are recognised by MOM for our tireless efforts, and we appreciate the efforts of MOM to collaborate with us to improve the welfare of workers. We are also re-assured by MOM’s clarification that an official warning was not issued to us even as displeasure was expressed by their directors on three separate occasions. We regret the public disclosure of these conversations between HOME and MOM on a personal Face Book wall.
I wish to clarify that HOME was not aware of funds available for the TIP programme until my meeting with the MOM director. I was genuinely surprised that we were not invited to apply for this funding, especially since HOME is an anti-human trafficking organization that has been acknowledged internationally by Mrs Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State. Incidentally we had just completed our research on the labour trafficking of domestic workers without any TIP funds from the government. We will soon make an application with hope for an approval for the funding of our anti -human trafficking programme.
As we respect the efforts of MOM to resolve the concerns of the Panasonic workers, we also empathise with the plight of these workers. They paid approximately $7000 to their agent in China to get work at Panasonic. When they found out that the local agency collected S$3000 a head from the Chinese agent in excess of two months’ salary equivalent, three workers lodged a complaint at MOM. Despite the local agent’s own admission via video recording, the attending IO dismissed the complaint and accepted the agent’s explanation that the $3000 payment receipt included a refundable portion back to the Chinese agent upon the completion of the probationary period of the worker. We hope that MOM would call on the local agent to substantiate his explanation with payment and receipt records to show that the workers were not overcharged in Singapore.
HOME is appreciative of MOM's support to us over the years, and its assurance that we will continue to collaborate as equal partners in the interest of the welfare of migrant workers in Singapore.
Bridget Tan
President and Founder