How to engage with the map?
We encourage you to click on the data points and read each description. You can also type your postal code into the search bar to better understand our geographical proximity to the violence that migrant workers experience daily.
If you would like to search for a worker by name, see the Data Spreadsheet.
We welcome contributions from the public to add information to our datasheet. If you know of any migrant worker's death that is not currently in the sheet, or if you have any additional information about any of our listings, please fill in the form here.
This map was created with the support of Kontinentalist.The Migrant Worker Death Map is a visual, geographical representation of migrant worker deaths that have been reported in the last two decades (1 Jan 2000—3 Aug 2022). These reports were predominantly found in local newspapers (accessed via the National Library archive) and MOM’s Workplace Safety & Health Reports. For a detailed process of how we conducted our research, please visit our Methodology section. There, you can also explore how we defined terms, such as ‘migrant worker’ and ‘workplace incidents’. To read the articles we sourced and view our full dataset, see the drop-down links in the Data section.
When migrant workers are injured in Singapore they become liabilities: cheaper to hire a new worker than treat a wounded one. And when they die they are digitised: reduced to fractions and statistics that cannot possibly contain who they were, who they loved, how they were made vulnerable.
We want to honour and dignify the people whose lives have been prematurely cut short in Singapore—individuals who leave their homes and families to build our homes and families. Male Migrant Workers (MMWs) actualise our schools, flats, places of worship; Foreign Domestic Workers (FDWs) raise our children, run our homes, and (literally) put food on the table.
Migrant workers are subjected to a second death when their deaths become anonymised footnotes in the story of our ‘progress’. We want the names of these men and women to be etched into our collective memory. When we put our hands up to shield against the sun, we must think of Pei Yingjun, who died from a heatstroke on his first day of work in Singapore because his company neglected to put him through an acclimatisation programme so he could adjust from his native Hebei province temperatures of -7 to 3°C. When we witness friends, family, or strangers berating their helpers we must think of Muawanatul Chanasah, who was starved, beaten, scalded, burnt with cigarettes, and kicked until her stomach was ruptured. She eventually died from peritonitis and was only 19 years old.
“Certain faces must be admitted into public view, must be seen and heard for some keener sense of the value of life, all life, to take hold. So, it is not that mourning is the goal of politics, but that without the capacity to mourn, we lose that keener sense of life we need in order to oppose violence.¹”
These are not instances of errant employers, bad apples, or unlucky workers. These are the human costs of a system built on (1) conditions that create vulnerability in order to generate and accelerate profit, (2) policies that may not fully protect people, and (3) the lack of accountability and meaningful change despite lobbying.
This story is not about punishment. This story is about the justness of migrant labour, and how any human being seeking employment in Singapore should not be repatriated in a coffin.
No one should have to stake their lives on a chance at making a living.
This visualisation was created with the support of Kontinentalist, and is based on the number of migrant worker deaths that we found reported from 1 Jan 2000—3 Aug 2022. Listen to Bhing, Maw Lwin and Sharif share their reimagining of a Singapore where they can live fuller lives.
¹Butler, J. (2004). Precarious life: The powers of mourning and violence. London: Verso.
The term “face” refers to the Levinasian face which is not precisely or exclusively a literal human face but rather a medium by which we communicate what is human, precarious, injurable.
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