UPDATED ON:
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
09:51 Mecca time, 06:51 GMT
 
News Asia-Pacific
Singapore raids 'jobs scam' firm
San's Marine deny any wrongdoing or ill-treatment of its workers

Authorities in Singapore have raided the premises of an engineering company following an Al Jazeera report on allegations that migrant workers were being kept there under duress.

Singapore's manpower ministry said it raided the offices of San's Marine on Friday and have since launched an investigation.

Last month Al Jazeera correspondent Tony Birtley visited the company's warehouses and found about 30 migrant workers being held there in what the workers called "the cage".

Our correspondent was investigating how workers from Bangladesh were being ripped off in highly-organised false job scams, paying exorbitant fees to agents in exchange for broken promises of high paying jobs.

San's Marine denied any wrongdoing or ill-treatment of its workers, but one of the workers, who spoke on condition his identity was protected, told Al Jazeera that they were "treated like animals".

IN VIDEO


Migrant workers ripped off 

"We are badly beaten if we speak a word to them. They keep us in such a way that nobody can hear us, even if we die starving, they wouldn't care," he said.

An aid agency says more than 50 migrant workers living in similar circumstances, ran away from their employers after our story was broadcast.

Speaking in parliament in April, Gan Kim Yong, Singapore's acting manpower minister, had said that rogue employment agencies involved in false job scams could be punished with six months' jail and a $10,000 fine if they were unlicensed repeat offenders.

But he also said that workers who chose to work illegally instead of participating in government programmes to help them could be jailed up to a year and fined up to $5,000.

 Source: Al Jazeera
 
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