Even if it's non-slavery, the maids do not get paid a lot and have to work quite a bit depending where they end up. No real private space and your "room" is a sleeping mat on the floor in the laundry next to the kitchen so you can be easily found. And they aren't expensive - if you can feed them and have a spare room, their pay is only around $600 per month. If that was the reality in Australia nearly every middle class family could afford one.

A couple more things I've noticed on my visits. Trucks and work vans allow people to ride in the back unsecured. They'd never let real citizens do that in their safer cars.

The airport had an entire separate processing line for the plane from Bangladesh one time when I visited.

I once arrived late at night when the newer terminal was being finished, and leaving the carpark saw rows and rows of shoes. The workers were all sleeping under the carpark exit ramp in the open air.

Those dorms mentioned caused some issues when COVID ripped through recently too.

> Im not sure if they confiscate their passports or not like in Dubai but i think they still do those contracts where they have to pay an agent and work off their debts.

Yes, most laborers are working off a debt to their agent. Confiscating passports is technically illegal, but very common in practice.

Safety regulations are tighter than in the Middle East, although still lax by the standards of most other developed countries.

People can report labor rights violations to the government, which sometimes even investigates them and takes action. But they are mostly content to turn a blind eye unless something is very egregious, and labor rights NGOS are understaffed and underfunded. And strikes are effectively illegal.

Unlike in the Middle East you can leave the country without your employer's permission, but this might be easier said than done in a lot of cases.

So, more indentured servitude than slavery. Still not great.

Kinda weird to see maid salaries ranked by race https://transfermaids.com/blogs/maid-salary-singapore. Myanmar maids should have at least 1 day off per month.

Bangladeshis are low-status migrant workers all over Asia and the Middle East, and deal with the poor working conditions that come with that. And they're often targets of racism, because racism isn't as taboo outside the western world. But the situation in the Emirates/Qatar/etc is completely different than Singapore. Unless you're taking the tack that "all capitalism is de facto slavery" or something like that, the term really only applies to the former, not to Singapore.

It's not completely different. The whole thing where they put them in debt, stuff them in dormitories, keep them on a tight leash, work them half to death, neglect health and safety and neglect them medically when theyre injured is the same in both countries.

In dubai/qatar they just do it more and worse and also like to confiscate their passports (although technically thats illegal now...).