3 Countries Combine Forces to Investigate Trafficking of Women

India Singapore and Malaysia are all investigating a sex slave trafficking circuit.

Slavery is one of the many social ills caused by poverty. Women from North East India are lured to the big cities with the promise of good jobs. Instead the women are forced to be strippers or prostitutes.

Here is a story about the same sex slave trade that we posted last week.

The Times of India updates the investigation.

The probe comes in the wake of an incident in which five tribal girls from Manipur and Assam, who were taken by an agent to Singapore on the pretext of getting them jobs there, were sent to Malaysia and pushed into flesh trade.

One of the girls managed to escape and alerted a pastor who got help from an NGO.

All the five were housed in the David Pasteur Christian Home for destitutes here, which linked up with social activist Kinderson Panmei.

Minister for Overseas Affairs Vyalar Ravi, currently on an official visit here, has said that his ministry has decided to immediately crack down on dubious recruitment agents and as a first step would suspend the agency on the receipt of any report against them and then start an enquiry against them.

He said his ministry had helped in the repatriation of the women back home last Friday.

One of the agents involved in the incident has been arrested in Manipur in India while one is on the run in Kolkata. Ravi has said that there were plans to amend the existing Immigration Act and recruitment agents duping people would be sentenced to a minimum of five years imprisonment. Manipur police are believed to have made several arrests in connection with the case of agents luring girls to this region, local media reports said.

Singapore and Malaysian police are believed to be hot on the trail of another man, believed to be the mastermind of a Singapore-based "recruiting firm", New Straits Times reported on Monday.

Could microcredit work in Singapore

from the Electric New Paper Singapore

This article explores if microcredit could work in Singapore. A conference is happening there now to introduce the country to the idea. - Kale

IT has scored some stunning successes in developing countries such as Bangladesh, China and Indonesia.

Microcredit, which gives small loans to the poor, has helped them and the illiterate escape the poverty cycle. It gives them much-needed access to credit to set up their own businesses.

The Asia-Pacific Regional Microcredit Summit ends today.

Can microcredit work in first-world Singapore?

How microcredit works

MICROCREDIT, also called poverty lending, provides small loans to the very poor.

These loans can start from as little as US$20 ($27) to US$100 for first-time borrowers, and are usually used to start small businesses.

In most cases, no collateral is needed.

However, money tend to be directed at a group - ranging from five people to a whole village - in which members are accountable for one another.

So, when someone in the group defaults his repayment, the whole group will have problems getting further loans.

Under peer pressure to repay, borrowers default less.

Loans made by Grameen Bank, a Bangladeshi bank which pioneered microcredit, have a repayment rate of 98 per cent.

The 25-year-old bank has 7.5 million borrowers in its home country.

It earned US$15.85 million in 2005, and its founder Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, for 'efforts to create economic and social development from below'.

YES, it can work here...

GIVE small loans to Singaporeans to set up hawker and pasar malam stalls, Mr Ang Mong Seng had said.

The Member of Parliament for Hong Kah GRC had suggested that the microcredit system be adopted in Singapore during the Budget debate in February.

Give or lend money to the enterprising poor at low interest, so they can start simple businesses and be self-reliant, he had said.

He noted then that the Government gave $100 to $200 a month to the poor through Community Development Councils.

But a bigger amount of $800 to $1,000 could be offered instead for them to start a business, he argued.

Mr Ang told The New Paper that there are ways the Government can help microcredit programmes succeed here.

First, it can subsidise the loans.

However, he said Singapore should first test the viability of any microcredit programme by allowing experienced lenders such as Grameen Bank to run them without state help.

Second, the Government can set up low-rental marketplaces to provide microcredit borrowers with a cheap way to start a business.

United Overseas Bank economist Suan Teck Kin said microcredit can be used to help the poor start low-tech businesses, such as producing handicraft work, from home.

Ms Wong Chia Lee, a Singaporean independent consultant who has been working with microbanks in South-east Asia for the past 10 years, pointed out that religious and other self-help groups here could well be the closely-knit communities needed for microcredit to work.

These groups could be given loans in a way that makes their members accountable to one another - the same way microcredit loans are administered in other countries.

NO, it won't work here...

THE costs of running a business in Singapore are too high, financial experts said.

Mr Ben Fok, CEO of Grandtag Financial Consultancy, said: 'Our costs of living and services is one of the highest in Asia.

'That will make it harder to find a successful microcredit model.'

Agreeing, Mr Suan Teck Kin of United Overseas Bank singled out rental costs as one of the biggest obstacles for someone looking to set up a small business.

Another problem, consultant Wong Chia Lee pointed out, is the high level of regulation in Singapore.

In the microcredit programmes that she has helped set up in East Timor, people can immediately start using the money to sell kueh (cakes) or cosmetics door-to-door, or to sell vegetables on the streets.

'But the first thing someone in Singapore has to think of is the need to get a licence,' she said.

Ms Wong also said Singaporeans are not as entrepreneurial as people in some of the neighbouring countries.

'For microcredit to be successful,' she said, 'the borrowers need to have an idea of what they are going to do with the money first.

'But in Singapore, we virtually have entrepreneurship genetically engineered out of us.'

She recalled how a community support group asked for her advice on obtaining credit a few years ago.

When she met the group, she realised they did not have any idea what they wanted to do once they had the money.

Link to full article. May expire in future.

Room for 'social business' in S'pore: Nobel laureate

from The Straits Times

By Cheong Suk-Wai

SINGAPORE is a global business centre with room for 'social business', says Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus.

'Social business is not charity... It's better to teach a man how to fish that to give him fish,' said the Bangladeshi economist and founder of micro-credit, who called on not-for-profit businesses and programmes to generate jobs and other opportunities to help those trapped in poverty.

'The business proposition is for the poor to pay a tiny amount of money for you to take care of their needs,' Professor Muhammad Yanus told The Straits Times here on Friday.

'You can, for example, bring health insurance to the poor, who pay a little bit every year for it. And I know if Singaporean people design it, it will be world-standard quality because you have the highest standards.'

Two or three Singaporeans, he added, could start such businesses just by pooling, say, their year-end bonuses.

In fact, he pointed out, with Singapore's reputation for quality, other countries would soon want to replicate its schemes since they would probably be the 'most efficient' by far.

Doing so, he added wryly, would also make society here 'more balanced and humane'.

Prof Muhammad Yunus, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year for lending tiny sums to the destitute so they could go into business, was the keynote speaker at a panel discussion on development in Bangladesh and Singapore at the National University of Singapore (NUS)'s Bukit Timah campus.

It was organised by the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, NUS and the Institute of South Asian Studies.

In 1974, the unassuming Bangladeshi economist started a social revolution when he took US$27 (S$39) out of his pocket and lent it to 42 Bangladeshi basket-weavers.

After years of dispensing small loans to the desperate, he set up the not-for-profit Grameen (Bengali for 'rural') Bank in Bangladesh in n 1983 to help even more needy folk, whom he made part-owners of Grameen and who paid it back in weekly instalments.

Today, Grameen is owned by 7.5 million Bangladeshis, most of them women, who previously held no purse strings because their culture entrusts money to men.

With 98 per cent of all borrowers repaying loans totalling more than US$5 billion today, his successful ways with microcredit are now followed in China, Canada, Thailand and India, among others.

His goal is to get Bangladesh's total population of 150 million owning the bank by 2013.

Grameen has also branched into more not-for-profit ventures like Grameen Shakti (to light up most Bangladeshi homes with solar power for people to read at night) and GrameenPhone (giving villagers solar-powered pay phones so they can run businesses).

The bank also gives out 30,000 scholarships a year to poor students now known as 'Grameen Children'.

Which begged the question: how to get materialistic non-Grameen children to help the needy?

Prof Muhammad Yunus smiled and said: 'Children today are born with plenty. And what do you do with your life when you are born with plenty? You want to do something to put your signature on this planet.'

'By having your own business with purpose,' he added, 'you can design things on your own and feel happy about it. This is not something that your Dad or Mum have done.'

[Blog Story] Of love and poverty

from Little Speck

An aged husband pushing his wheel-chaired wife 3km to meet an MP. By aidil.
Aug 25, 2007

A Meet-the-people's session (MPS) on Aug 1 was perhaps the saddest one I have attended thus far.

Sure, I have come across people who are stateless and seeking citizenship, HIV-positive persons, persons in really bad financial state and so on, but the special case that came before me today broke my heart.

This is a story of an elderly Malay couple alone in this world.

My heart raced as I had to interview the elderly Malay couple who looked like beggars, scruffy and tired.


The wife, 69 years old, was plump and wheelchair-bound. The husband, 75 years old, was pudgy, walked with a limp due to arthritis and wore loosely fitted shoes.

They live in a fully paid 3-room flat, which they bought many years ago. They only had one child. "Had" being the operative word. She/he died 2 years ago.

They live about 3km away from the MPS that I am stationed. The husband, with his bad knees, undertook, as a gesture of love, to always push his wife around in her wheelchair.

They don't take public transport because they cannot afford to and even if they did, they don't know how.

Not knowing the whereabouts of an MPS, they set off at 6pm today in search for the first one they could find.

They walked from location to location, asking people where an MPS is located. They finally ended up at my table - 3km from their house - at 8+pm.

Not having any money to take a taxi or a bus, the husband pushed the sick wife all the way with his bad knees.

The husband, being ill and old, is unable to find work. The wife, makes the best of her wheelchair bound state to sell packets of tissue paper. She brings in S$10 max a day.

With S$10/day, they have to pay for meals, basic necessities and electrical/water bills. But this has over time become unbearable. They needed help and thus they walked 3km to my interview table.

My heart broke when they retold their story of hardship.

All alone in this world, with their only child dead, they only have each other. Despite their state of poverty and helplessness, they still look on each other with a glow of love because they are thankful that at the end of the day, they still have each other.

It breaks my heart to know that they are surviving only on S$10/day. It breaks my heart to know that they are ill and sick. It breaks my heart to know that they walked for hours not knowing their destination.

But it's at least comforting for me to know that despite their troubles, they still have each other as best-friends and soul mates. The undying dedication of the husband to take care of his wheelchair bound wife uplifts my soul.

I did what I could. I couldn't bear to see them walk back 3km at 9pm. I gave them a lift home in a taxi - a ride, which they enjoyed, not having been inside a cab in years.

Tomorrow, I shall visit them after shopping for some groceries for them with Shaz. We'll see what we can do to help personally because we are not sure when the government's financial aid will come in for them.

My appeal to all is this: Be aware of those around you and help out when you can, especially when you have the means.

For instance, when you see someone selling tissue paper packets, please buy some because for all you know, that's their only source of income.
Sincerely,
Aidil

ONE Singapore and the fight against poverty

from Radio Singapore International

Can we eradicate poverty within our lifetime?

According to Michael Switow, President of One Singapore, we definitely can.

MS: Yes, that is it. We will see it in our life time. That is what we believe. We’re about eradicating extreme poverty within one generation. Other generations have had their struggles like slavery, apartheid; our generation has what we see as poverty. We have the means to end poverty if we have fair trade rules, if we have more and better overseas assistance, if we fight corruption in countries where it exists, if we had more transparency and fewer regulations, if we encourage entrepreneurship, these things which Singapore has done very well. Let’s implement these things globally and we can make poverty history in our life time. And we can transform the hopes and future of an entire generation.

This week in The Asian Journal, we explore One Singapore’s ‘Make Poverty History’ campaign and why it is time for Asia and the rest of the world to take a stand.

Welcome to the program, I’m Justin Teo.

Many of us remember the rallies and concerts for the Make Poverty History campaign over the past two years which featured rock stars and NGOs fighting against the causes of poverty.

One Singapore aims to build on that momentum and create awareness and action amongst Singaporeans and friends in the region to eradicate world poverty.

Michael Switow from One Singapore tells us more about this new organization in the Lion City.

MS: One Singapore is an organization dedicated to building public awareness and taking concrete actions in making poverty history. We live in a time where we have the means and ability to transform the hopes of an entire generation. There’s enough food to feed the hungry. There are resources to combat illnesses like AIDS and malaria; we have the means. And one by one, we can change the world and eradicate poverty within a generation. And this is not some idea which we came up with. In 2000, leaders from 189 countries including Singapore signed the Millennium declaration which is a set of time-bound objective targets to eradicate extreme poverty within one generation and eradicate by 2025. So what we want to do is to hold world leaders to their commitments and to their promises because right now we are lagging behind and we want to make sure that we do eliminate poverty within a generation. . Because afterwards you don’t want to have to say that we stood by and did nothing while children died when we could have done something.

So how successful has One Singapore been in pushing its projects out to the masses?

MS: In terms of raising awareness across the region, I think it’s been pretty phenomenal. We’re just getting started in Singapore, we’ve been here for just a year now and we’re definitely making inroads but let me just give you an example. There was an event in mid-October called Stand Up Against Poverty. The idea was that over a period of 24 hours, people would stand up and take a declaration calling on leaders of the world, rich and poor alike, to do the right thing and do what’s needed to make poverty history. 23.5 million people stood up and called on world leaders to make poverty history and I’ll tell you one interesting thing, 18 million of those people were here in Asia. So in terms of public awareness, that’s the largest group of people ever that have been mobilized in a social cause. And this has been marked down in the Guinness Book of World Records.

One Singapore recently organized a 24-hour football tournament to raise awareness of global poverty issues.

Dr. Lim Wee Kiat, Member of Parliament for Sembawang GRC in Singapore, opened the event and I caught up with him to hear his views on global poverty.

LWK: One Singapore is new as an organization here but I think it is great that they are trying to raise global awareness starting off firstly in Singapore. Our youths here are very comfortable living in Singapore with things like transport, healthcare, shelter over our heads and such, there really is no doubt that we have enough here. But many are unaware of what is happening overseas. Singaporeans are becoming more aware of the global environment through education, through the Internet and through organizations like this. I think it is good that our youths get the social consciousness now to realize that we’re not alone in this world now, to realize that we have neighbors and that we have regions where people still live in poverty. I hope through organizations like One Singapore, the message will be passed down and more Singaporeans will take pro-active efforts to eradicate poverty not just locally but globally because every little action helps.

One reason why there are so many cynics in the fight against poverty is because no solutions have been successful in eradicating poverty and they believe none will.

But Dr. Lim believes otherwise.

LWK: No, I think whatever the cynics have been saying, rather than just saying, I think it is time for a bit of action. Even if it is to help just one poor family, just help. Every single drop of aid counts so if everyone chips in, we’ll make oceans at the end of the day. I think the key solution now is to pass on to the leaders just as how the One Singapore pledge was recited on the stage earlier; it is very useful to remind world leaders of their promises and their pledges to help the poor countries. Likewise for leaders of the poor countries, they have to do their best to eradicate corruption. They’ve got to promote education and improve living standards for the masses at the end of the day. These are the key measures that will help the global poverty environment at the end of the day. But our little efforts will count because leaders will take heed of what the youths are thinking of. So youths are a very powerful force, starting from actions like what One Singapore is taking; it will impact of our leaders and likewise on the leaders of the other countries.

Poverty is widespread everywhere, even in first world and developed nations.

So which region in the world requires the most assistance in fighting poverty?

LWK: In the recent IMF World Bank meetings itself, they listed out the world’s poorest countries and I believe many of them come from Africa. They have problems politically and with issues like the environment where there are droughts and natural disasters. So they have their fair share of problems. I certainly hope that IMF, World and countries around the world can give these states some help. It is very sad to see in rich countries like the United States and countries in Europe protectionism and trade imbalances that results in ‘food dumping’ because they cannot be sold. I mean food resources could have been diverted to these poor countries.

As part of Singapore’s parliament, Dr. Lim has attended overseas conferences for parliamentarians, including those involving Commonwealth nations.

So how do African parliamentarians view this fight against poverty, especially with so much focus on Africa itself?

Dr. Lim explains.

LWK: I think within themselves they are very frustrated at their own political impasse. They know that their own political system is not perfect. The main problem which I see now is corruption. They have unchecked corruption within the system. Even good parliamentarians sometimes have no choice. I met a parliamentarian, I won’t mention which country she’s from, and she told me she was new to her parliament. I told her I was new too. She told me she had a problem when this company came to her province and wanted to get the mining rights for some minerals. The company was willing to give her US$3 million for this contract. But the company told her that even if she didn’t accept the bribe, her prime minister will take it. So it was up to her whether she takes it or the prime minister takes it. So she told me that she had no choice but to accept the bribe and use it to start a fund to help the poor. But it is sort of robbing her own country of minerals and resources at the end of the day. It’s quite sad because she herself as a lone parliamentarian has no power against the rest of the government. So when I heard about her story I feel quite lucky with what we have here and parliamentarians here need not face with such dilemmas.

The fight against poverty is a long and hard one. But there can be an end to it and it can be a good one.

You can contribute to the cause by joining One Singapore and volunteering your time or resources. You can also take a stand by wearing a white band or hosting a website banner to raise awareness.

Or you could simply tell a friend about the fight against poverty.

Visit onesingapore.org for more information.