Who are the migrant workers we included?
The Migrant Worker Death Map seeks to document every migrant worker who has lost their life in Singapore. However, in the interest of setting clear parameters for our research and data analysis, we defined a migrant worker as: any foreigner who comes to Singapore to find employment, including those on a Work Permit, Special Pass, Dependent Pass of a Work Permit holder, or no valid pass or entry documents. This does not include foreigners who are Permanent Residents, on an Employment Pass as they have a more secure foothold in Singapore because their labour is regarded as "talent" and beneficial to our economy, and they are offered paths to naturalisation. Our study is focused on low-wage migrant workers who have been employed in Singapore as a transient and flexible “unskilled” labour force (as regulated by the Work Permit System). We looked at both male and female migrant workers (such as construction workers and domestic helpers respectively).
We left workers who hold an ‘S’ Pass out of the dataset for the same reasons that we excluded Permanent Residents and Employment Pass holders. However, this decision was only possible if the reports mentioned that they were on an ‘S’ Pass. There might be workers in our current dataset that did hold an ‘S’ Pass and are included because we were not able to determine otherwise. It is also important to note that many workers on S-Pass would still typically be considered ‘migrant workers’ and are relevant to our project. This is because employers sometimes employ S-Pass holders on paper as a strategy to fulfil their S-pass minimum quotas in order to maintain their Work Permit hiring quota, while in reality paying these S-pass holders less than the minimum required salary of $3,000.
We did not include deaths of Singaporeans in the same reported incident, or the deaths of workers if the article did not explicitly state that the worker held a Work Permit, Special Pass, Dependent Pass of a Work Permit holder, or no valid pass or entry documents. We included capital punishments of migrant workers, but not migrants (e.g. we included the death of Kho Jabing, but not Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam).
How were the key data points collected?
Many of the visualisations are built from a dataset we gathered through public sources. Primarily, this involved finding reports of migrant worker deaths in local newspapers (accessed via the National Library archive), but also included newspapers from the home countries of migrant workers, blogs, and MOM’s Workplace Safety & Health Reports—both online and archival versions. To define our research parameters, we set a timeframe of 1 Jan 2000 to 3 Aug 2022 (end period is subject to change in view of future dataset updates).
For a comprehensive documentation of each data listing, the following were detailed:
Name: Reported name of a migrant worker; listed as "Unknown" if unreported.
Sex: Reported sex of a migrant worker, occasionally depending on the pronouns used in the reports. If unreported, we assume that a construction/shipyard worker is male and a domestic worker is female.
Nationality: Reported nationality of a migrant worker; listed as "Unknown" if unreported.
Age: Reported age of a migrant worker; listed as "Unknown" if unreported.
Category (and Sub-Category where applicable) of Death: Determined cause of death of a migrant worker.
Date: Date of death of a migrant worker. In instances where reports do not state the exact date of death, the date of incident is used in place.
Location: Location of death of a migrant worker, or location of incident which resulted in death. In some cases of medical illnesses, we use the location of the hospital that the worker was taken to for care. The geo-coordinates on the main map were retrieved from addresses shared in the respective sources and may not be exact to where the incident took place. For example, some sources only provided a road name, and the exact location on that road is indeterminable. Where this is the case, an approximate location was generated.
The complete datasheet is available for viewing here. We have decided to release the dataset under the Creative Commons CC BY-NC licence and we welcome contributions from the public to improve the accuracy of 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.
How were the categories decided?
We categorised our data into 8 main causes of death of a migrant worker: Capital Punishment, Dormitory Incidents, Medical Illness, Sucide/Suspected Suicide, Murder/Manslaughter, Transport Accidents, Workplace Incidents, and those that could not be clearly determined as “Unclassfied”.
Workplace incidents account for the highest number of all migrant worker deaths in our dataset. To illustrate the different types of workplace incidents, this category is further broken down into 11 sub-categories: Crush Injury, Domestic Abuse, Drowning, Electrocution, Fall from Height, Fire or Explosion, Heat Stroke, Struck-by Injury, Suffocation/Toxic Chemical Exposure, Vehicular Accidents, as well as Unclassified. Our categories are loosely informed by the incident types listed in the WSH reports.
Data collection for visualisations
Due to ambiguities in reporting and data availability, we have had to self-collect data through primary and/or secondary research and make some assumptions in our analysis.
1. Monthly salary breakdown
To collect data for the average monthly salary breakdown for a migrant worker in the “Mental Health'' section, we disseminated an online survey via social media over a period of 12 days, and received 37 responses (19 and 18 from male and female migrant workers respectively). The survey questionnaire (in English) is available for view here, and the survey responses are available for view here.
We defined money remitted home as being remitted to the family (including any home loans), and we assumed money figures given in thousands were in their home currency rather than Singapore Dollars. Some respondents indicated only numerical digits for ‘how long have you worked here?’, and we assumed years instead of months for most of these incomplete answers.
Not all data collected was complete. Some questions were left unanswered by some respondents, making it difficult to draw conclusive statements. We selected data from the most complete responses, shortlisting 6 respondents, 3 each from male and female migrant workers. This data visualisation is not meant to be representative of all migrant workers, but to illustrate the financial obligations of many migrant workers, and how loans demand a huge portion of their income.
2. Medical costs comparison
The medical costs in the “Inaccessible Healthcare” section were drawn from the MOH website which details fee benchmarks and bill amount information. The dataset of prices and their specific sources is available for view here.
We compared the aggregated costs of care for 14 common health conditions for a Singaporean and a non-Singaporean. To form a representative picture, the conditions were chosen across medical and surgical disciplines, and covered different areas of the body. We assumed both individuals were warded in Class C, the cheapest tier. While the MOH website only mentions ‘the Government subsidy has been applied’, we assumed the Singaporean got the highest subsidy possible (80%).
3. Limitations in workplace deaths reporting
In drawing up the total number of migrant workplace deaths in the “List of Demands” section, we compared “actual” deaths (defined by those reported by WSH where we extracted data from the MOM WSH Reports) and “reported” deaths (defined by those gathered from public sources and logged in our datasheet).
With effect from 1 March 2006, the WSH (Incident Reporting) Regulations require all workplaces to report all work accidents. Due to some parameters from the WSH reports that could not be determined, there are a few limitations to the sample data used for this visualisation:
Workplace deaths reported by the WSH include Singaporean workers, and the breakdown of the local and foreign workers’ deaths remains undefined. In 2016, The Straits Times asked the MOM for a year-on-year breakdown of the local and foreign workers who died doing their jobs in the last 10 years, and the MOM declined to give the breakdown. To estimate the number of migrant workers’ deaths, two-thirds of the total number of deaths is used, as according to MOM, "On average, two-thirds of workers who have died in fatal workplace accidents are foreigners."
The data sample only covers deaths in 2007 – 2016, as the two-thirds estimate only applies to “the last 10 years” based on the above statement made in 2016.
Given that work-related traffic accidents are included in WSH reports 2013 onwards (Source: Workplace Safety and Health Report, 2014), the deaths in our data set categorised as ‘Transport Incidents’, such as lorry incidents, are also included in our data sample from 2013.
It is not clearly defined if the WSH reports include the workplace deaths of female domestic helpers, so our data sample includes the workplace deaths of both male and female migrant workers to ensure we did not under report any deaths.
Glossary
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Agents of Exploitation | Individuals or entities that (1) directly or indirectly associate with or assist a migrant worker in his/her employment and living situation; and/or (2) profit from these arrangements. This phrase is intended to encapsulate the different forces and power asymmetries that exist and exploit migrant workers in Singapore. Not all of these agents play a role that is directly exploitative; some occupy a position that is complicit, while others simply do not act despite being positioned (or paid) to. |
| Capital Punishment | The state-sanctioned killing of a person, as determined by the Singapore criminal justice system. While many migrants have been executed in Singapore, this dataset only includes listings of migrants who were employed or were pursuing employment in Singapore at the time of their persecution . |
| CDE | Centre for Domestic Employees (CDE): An initiative of the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) set up in January 2016. According to their website, they seek to champion for the fair treatment of all domestic employees in Singapore. |
| Crush Injury | Any work-related death that is a result of force or pressure put on a migrant worker’s body at a worksite. This type of injury typically happens when a part of the body is squeezed between two heavy objects, when a piece of equipment falls onto a worker, or when a worker is wholly trapped between objects. |
| Death | All deaths of migrant workers that were reported in publicly available sources, further detailed in the "Methodology". In some instances where sources did not state whether the worker held a Work Permit/Special Pass, the death is not included. |
| Disregard for Migrant Lives | A general set of prevailing attitudes surrounding the treatment of migrant workers in Singapore. Importantly, this includes a lack of accountability and meaningful change despite lobbying (e.g. lorry issue); the lack of data transparency and journalism around the issue of migrant death; and public perceptions of migrant workers that are callous or disdainful. |
| Domestic Abuse | Any work-related death that is a result of maltreatment or neglect, by the employer or by a member of the employment household. This can take on many forms, including physical (e.g. torture and starvation), sexual, and emotional abuse. Cases of murder/manslaughter or other kinds of domestic workplace incidents (e.g. falling from cleaning windows or hanging laundry) are not included in this category of death. Only Foreign Domestic Workers are included in this category. |
| Dormitory Incidents | Any work-related death resulting from an incident occurring at a dormitory residence. Most cases in this category include victims of dormitory fires, who die immediately or from injuries sustained from the fire. |
| Drowning | Any work-related death that is a result of drowning, including cases where reports state that a worker's body was found at sea. |
| EA | Employment Act (EA): Singapore's main labour law, which provides for the basic terms and working conditions for all types of employees, with some exceptions. Foreign Domestic Workers are not covered under the EA. |
| EFMA | Employment of Foreign Manpower Act (EFMA): This act regulates the employment of foreign employees and protects their well-being. The EFMA covers employers of foreign employees and any person issued a work pass by the Ministry of Manpower. Work passes include Employment Pass, S Pass and Work Permit. Foreign Domestic Workers are covered under the EFMA. |
| Electrocution | Any work-related death that is a result of an electric current passing through the body. |
| Fall from Height | Any work-related death that is a result of a fall from height or injuries sustained from the fall. This includes Male Migrant Workers who fall from scaffolding or when the work structure they are standing on is toppled; as well as Foreign Domestic Workers who fall to their death while cleaning windows or hanging laundry. |
| FDW | Foreign Domestic Worker (FDW): This term is used by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM). On this website, 'Foreign Domestic Worker', 'domestic worker', 'helper' and ‘maid’ are used interchangeably. |
| Fire or Explosion | Any work-related death that is a result of a fire or an explosion, including cases where workers succumb to fire or explosion-related burn injuries later on. |
| GONGO | Government Organised Non-Governmental Organisation (GONGO): Civic groups that are set up, managed, or sponsored by government-related bodies. |
| HDB | Housing and Development Board (HDB): A statutory board under the Ministry of National Development responsible for Singapore's public housing. |
| Heat Stroke | Any work-related death that is a result of heat-related injuries, including workers who succumb to those injuries later on. |
| HOME | Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics (HOME): A non-government organisation founded in 2004 that supports and empowers migrant workers who experience abuse and exploitation. |
| Human Rights Watch | An international non-governmental organisation that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. According to their website, they seek to investigate and report abuses happening globally. |
| International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families (CRMW) | A global diplomatic deal, overseen by the United Nations (UN), to guarantee dignity, equality, and protect the rights of migrant workers around the world. |
| IPA | In-Principle Approval (IPA): One of the requirements for employers to bring migrant workers into Singapore. The IPA letter includes information about the worker and their employment details such as their basic salary and fixed monthly allowance. |
| LTA | Land Transport Authority (LTA): A statutory board under the Ministry of Transport responsible for Singapore's land transport. |
| MDW | Migrant Domestic Worker (MDW): This term is used by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM). |
| Medical Illness | Any reported death that is a result of health conditions or illnesses. Some of these conditions are not typically associated with high incidence of death, and were potentially exacerbated amongst migrant workers due to inadequate medical care. This includes any death from COVID-19 or from complications arising from contracting COVID-19. |
| Migrant Mutual Aid (MMA) | A self-organised advocacy group in Singapore that facilitates the redistribution of resources from Singaporeans to the migrant community. |
| Migrant Worker | Any foreigner who comes to Singapore to find employment, including those on a Work Permit, Special Pass, Dependent Pass of a Work Permit holder, or have no valid pass or entry documents. This does not include foreigners who are Permanent Residents, on an Employment Pass, or an ‘S’ Pass. |
| MMW | Male Migrant Worker (MMW): This term is used by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM). |
| MOM | Ministry of Manpower (MOM): The Ministry responsible for the formulation and implementation of policies related to the workforce in Singapore. |
| MoS | Method of Statement (MoS): A Workplace Safety & Health (WSH) requirement that describes a logical sequence exactly how a job is to be carried out in a safe manner and without risks to health. |
| Murder/Manslaughter | Any migrant worker who was killed by another person(s), intentionally, recklessly or negligently. This includes cases of workers who sustain injuries due to an attack and later die in the hospital. |
| MWC | Migrant Workers' Centre (MWC): According to their website, they are a non-governmental organisation (NGO) who seek to champion fair employment practices and the well-being of migrant workers in Singapore. In our website, MWC is identified as a Government Organised Non-Governmental Organisation (GONGO) due to their links with the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) and the Singapore National Employers’ Federation (SNEF). |
| NGO | Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO): While NGOs have no fixed or formal definition, they are generally defined as nonprofit entities independent of governmental influence (although they may receive government funding). |
| NTUC | National Trades Union Congress (NTUC): The sole national trade union centre in Singapore. According to their website, it is a national confederation of trade unions, as well as a network of professional associations and partners across all sectors in Singapore. |
| Precarity | The uncertainty and vulnerability that arises from being marginalised and subjected to exploitative conditions. |
| RA | Risk Assessment (RA): A Workplace Safety & Health (WSH) requirement. A formal and systematic process to identify and quantify events and frequencies or probabilities and the magnitude of consequences or losses to recipients, due to exposure to hazards from failures involving natural events and failures of hardware, software, and human systems. |
| Repatriate | The act of sending a migrant worker back to their home country. |
| Road Traffic Act | According to Singapore Statutes Online, this is an Act for the regulation of road traffic, the use of vehicles, the use of roads, and for other purposes connected therewith. |
| S Pass | The S Pass allows mid-level skilled foreigners to work in Singapore. Candidates need to earn at least $2,500 a month and have the relevant qualifications and work experience. |
| SCAL | Singapore Contractors Association Ltd (SCAL): According to their website, it is a not-for-profit organisation representing more than 3,000 construction firms and allied businesses in Singapore |
| SIP | Settling-In Programme (SIP): A 1-day orientation programme for first-time MDWs to educate them on safety precautions and living in Singapore, conducted in English or in a domestic worker's native language. |
| SNEF | Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF): According to their website, it is an employer representative in the tripartite system in Singapore, to advance tripartism and enhance labour market flexibility to enable employers to implement responsible employment practices. |
| Special Pass | A Special Pass card, which legalises a foreigner’s stay in Singapore, is issued for specific purposes such as assisting in investigations, attending court, and for stateless persons residing in Singapore. The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) and Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) are the only issuing authorities for the Special Pass. |
| Struck-by Injury | Any work-related death that is a result of an equipment or object striking the victim (e.g. a machinery or a tree branch). This includes instances where a worker dies upon impact or falls from height after being struck. |
| Suffocation/Toxic Chemical Exposure | Any work-related death that is a result of a lack of oxygen, exposure to toxic chemicals, or being trapped in a confined space. |
| Suicide/Suspected Suicide | Any death which was reported in a manner that confirmed or suggested that they took their own lives. Examples of such indications are: the inclusion of sucide helplines in the article, references to suicidal ideation prior to their deaths, or suicide notes written by the workers. This is a superceding category of deaths in the dataset, which includes cases where the worker was "found motionless" at the bottom of a flight of stairs and the report suggests a suicide, even if they tested positive for COVID-19 after their death. |
| Tripartite Alliance for Dispute Management (TADM) | The TADM was jointly set up by the tripartite partners: the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) and Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF). According to their website, through advisory and mediation services, it seeks to help employees and employers manage employment disputes, or self-employed persons manage payment-related disputes, amicably. |
| Transport Accidents | Any death of a migrant worker that occurs outside of the workplace between vehicles, or between vehicle(s) and pedestrian(s). This includes lorry-related transport accidents that occur during commutes to and from worksites. |
| TWC2 | Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2): A non-profit advocacy organisation founded in 2003 that is dedicated to improving conditions for low-wage migrant workers. |
| Unclassified | Any death of a migrant worker that was reported as "unclassified", "unnatural", or "awaiting coroner's reports", without any other contextual information that could place their death in any other definitive category. |
| Unknown | Details could not be found in publicly available sources. |
| Vehicular Accidents | Any work-related death involving one or more vehicles that occur within a worksite. Vehicular-related deaths that occur outside of the worksite are listed in the 'Transport Accidents' category. |
| Violence | Within the scope of this project, we have defined 'violence' to mean direct and indirect harm that is inflicted onto the migrant community. This includes the maintaince of unsafe workplaces, policy that disgregards migrant life, and also cases of abuse (physical, mental, sexual). |
| Work Injury Compensation Act (WICA) | An act that allows employees to make claims for work-related injuries or diseases without having to file a civil suit under common law. It is a low-cost and quicker alternative to common law for settling compensation claims. Workers who claim compensation under WICA cannot also claim compensation under common law. |
| Work Permit (WP) | The Work Permit allows semi-skilled migrant workers from approved source countries to work in certain sectors. |
| Workplace Incidents | Any death of a migrant worker that occurs at a worksite, e.g. a household where a domestic worker works,a construction site, or a shipyard. In this category, there are 11 sub-categories illustrating the different types of workplace incidents, such as: Fall from Height, Crush Injury, Struck-by Injury, etc. |
| Workplace Safety and Health (WSH) Act | An act that covers the safety, health and welfare of persons at work in a workplace. It requires stakeholders to take reasonably practicable steps for the safety and health of workers and others affected by work. |
| Workplace Safety and Health Institute (WSHI) | A department within the Occupational Safety and Health Division (OSHD) in MOM. According to their website, its core business includes uncovering WSH trends and risks through data, anticipating emerging WSH issues, developing psychosocial WSH assessment tools, and partnering stakeholders in the technology ecosystem to improve WSH through industry-specific technologies. They also produce yearly WSH reports and publications. |
Note from Kontinentalist
Kontinentalist is a data-driven storytelling studio with a vision to bring Asia to the forefront of global conversations. We use creative storytelling, data visualisation, and empathy to cut through the noise around Asia’s key topics. We supported the making of selected visuals for this project, including the main map, as part of our belief in the need for adequate safety and support for migrant workers in Singapore. Beyond these selected visuals, all data collection, assertions expressed in writing, multimedia elements, and edits or updates to the website have been/will be those of the Migrant Death Map team.