A human by any other nationality...

... is still a human, isn't it?

A NOTORIOUS Singapore stereotype — the maid suffering abuse in silence or getting her salary deducted without good reason — may soon have to be revised.

I've often seen foreigners, not only maids, who earn their living in Singapore, being exploited by their local employers.

I don't understand it.

The popular mentality here is that as long as you come from some third world country or some country whose economic situation is worse than ours, that you suddenly do not have any right as a human being.

Why is that so?

Why do some local employers subject their foreign workers to these conditions?

Why does coming from a lesser country automatically qualify one as less than a human being?

Some filipinos hired as maids, in my observation are made to work at their employers' company premises for long hours for a pittance... with no off days!

There are also Sabah and China workers who get paid slightly more in salary and slightly better terms but just because they're foreigners, they're subject to differing conditions as compared to local workers by I would say, a big margin.

For instance, a normal working day for them includes a 12 hr shift as compared to 9 for a local. Some of them do not even get paid overtime for anything on top the stipulated hours.

If they're lucky, they get an off day once a fortnight as compared to once a week for a local.

On the flipside, we could take it that they should be grateful to even manage to get a job in Singapore and they are in this respect.

The amount of money they take home is probably worth little to us but when converted to their respective home currencies, it's a fortune. That much is true.

However my argument is about whether they should be treated as less than a human being just because they come from a less fortunate place.

Why should another human being treat another this way?