Bridget Lew Tan
“Social justice is the responsibility of each and every person” By Dora Cheok
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"It's just human to care about other people"
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Bridget Lew hails from Singapore, home to one of the largest migrant labour workforce in Asia. For over a decade, Lew has been at the forefront of migrant labour rights.
“In Singapore the group of people that are discriminated and marginalised, more vulnerable to exploitation and abuse than other groups are migrant workers, who are unskilled and semi-skilled,” Lew says. Local labour laws that protect citizens aren’t applicable to this particular group of people.
Lew founded the Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics, or HOME, in 2005. Since then, HOME has provided direct assistance to more than 50,000 migrants and victims of human trafficking and forced labour.
A large number of those in need are women, specifically domestic workers. Lew tells us about the case of an Indonesian woman who climbed out of a window on the 32nd floor of a condominium. “She got out of the window and she climbed onto an air condition compressor unit and hopped from one unit to another, to try and get to the lift lobby access.”
What could have driven her to do something like this? “I asked her … she couldn’t tolerate the verbal abuse from the grandmother of that household. For a person to be driven to this, it must have been really bad. And yet verbal abuse is not taken as a serious matter by the authorities because there is no proof,” Lew adds.
“For me, social justice is the responsibility of each and every person. The strong must help the weak; the rich should help the poor. Those who are knowledgeable should help those who aren’t. We all have a part to play,” says Lew.
HOME, under Bridget’s direction, continues to aid hundreds of displaced foreign workers, providing from food, shelter and legal council. “It’s just human to care about other people … the world, it isn’t perfect. But we have to do our part to show kindness, understanding and compassion.”
Bridget Lew hails from Singapore, home to one of the largest migrant labour workforce in Asia. For over a decade, Lew has been at the forefront of migrant labour rights.
“In Singapore the group of people that are discriminated and marginalised, more vulnerable to exploitation and abuse than other groups are migrant workers, who are unskilled and semi-skilled,” Lew says. Local labour laws that protect citizens aren’t applicable to this particular group of people.
Lew founded the Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics, or HOME, in 2005. Since then, HOME has provided direct assistance to more than 50,000 migrants and victims of human trafficking and forced labour.
A large number of those in need are women, specifically domestic workers. Lew tells us about the case of an Indonesian woman who climbed out of a window on the 32nd floor of a condominium. “She got out of the window and she climbed onto an air condition compressor unit and hopped from one unit to another, to try and get to the lift lobby access.”
What could have driven her to do something like this? “I asked her … she couldn’t tolerate the verbal abuse from the grandmother of that household. For a person to be driven to this, it must have been really bad. And yet verbal abuse is not taken as a serious matter by the authorities because there is no proof,” Lew adds.
“For me, social justice is the responsibility of each and every person. The strong must help the weak; the rich should help the poor. Those who are knowledgeable should help those who aren’t. We all have a part to play,” says Lew.
HOME, under Bridget’s direction, continues to aid hundreds of displaced foreign workers, providing from food, shelter and legal council. “It’s just human to care about other people … the world, it isn’t perfect. But we have to do our part to show kindness, understanding and compassion.”
For more information on Bridget Lew’s work, go to www.home.org.sg. Also, watch a video documentary featuring Tan: www.mtvexit.org/videoGet.php?lang=1&id=4&vdo_cat=1
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