Ah, you were talking about maids. Yes, I agree there needs to be far stricter enforcement there, and a cultural shift to go with it. I haven't witnessed any abuse personally but have also heard stories.

I think it's because that mostly happens behind closed doors in private property - there's all sorts of scope for that few percentage of natural assholes to abuse the power they wield, plus as you say, it's sort of culturally acceptable. I too would like to see that changed.

That said, would you destroy a whole class of employment just because of a few bad apples? Or even more than a few? I also know that for uneducated girls from villages in Indonesia, working overseas as a maid is like winning the lottery. The alternative is often to become a prostitute. Where's the line?

And FWIW I've had a maid before and I don't think it changed me at all. But you're right - there's a certain type of person for whom having a little bit of power over a person unlocks something dark inside them, and in a domestic setting that can be a recipe for mistreatment. More regulation is needed - Singapore's laissez-faire attitude fails it here.

I was talking more of the construction industry, where stories of abuse are much less common (and there are witnesses and company licenses at stake) - in this context, migrant work is IMO an inarguable good.

That is interesting; I've been to Australia once in my life, year before last. I went from Brisbane to Roma, and by the time I got to Roma the only non-Caucasian faces I saw were serving me food. I was told (but have no other information, so this could of course be completely wrong) that their contracts and immigration status effectively tied them to their service job, hundreds of miles inland where the only other people like them were in a similar subservient situation, and that the people owning their contracts very much had that kind of power over them.

This is pure anecdote, of course.

I think there is a fair bit of truth in this. There is barely a week that goes by here without a news story about some company or another grossly underpaying and/or mistreating immigrant workers in Australia.

In some cases they are supposed to be students, but are forced to work 40hr weeks in low paying jobs under threat of instant deportation.

This bugs me about my own country too.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/one-in-five-migrant-workers-o...

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/tackling-the-exploitation-of-i...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-13/international-students...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-15/ombudsman-report-revea...