‘I felt so alone in Singapore’

[The_King]

SINGAPORE – Siti’s husband, an odd-job worker 10 years her senior, did not allow her to leave the house without him – not even to do marketing.

Her husband also did not allow her to work and she was not given an allowance, though he paid for the bills at home. 

Siti (not her real name), now 38, met her husband while working as a hotel receptionist in Indonesia, where he was holidaying. 

They got engaged after a long-distance relationship of three months. 

“I married him as he was very sincere in wanting to marry me,” she said. 

However, life in Singapore in the early years had been mostly housebound for her. She stayed home to raise their four children, the oldest of whom is now 14.

“I felt he was afraid of me making new friends and I felt very alone.” 

She said she did not go into marriage thinking that a Singaporean man would be her ticket to a better life, but she certainly did not expect the chagrin of having to ask him for money for even the smallest things. 

“I felt like a child,” she said.

“Once I asked him for $5 to buy chilli for cooking, and he said he had no money. I was angry that he had money to buy 4D, but said he had no money to buy chilli.”

Many foreign women, wed to low-income Singaporean men, face problems ranging from family violence to poverty. PHOTO: ST

Siti is not alone in her marital woes. 

There are many foreign women, wed to low-income Singaporean men, who face problems ranging from family violence to poverty as well as an uncertain stay in Singapore. 

These women remain “invisible and voiceless” largely due to their immigration status, as they have limited rights, protection and access to social benefits, said Ms Shailey Hingorani, head of research and advocacy at the Association of Women for Action and Research (Aware).

She added: “Many lack knowledge of the rights and benefits that they are entitled to and are left feeling helpless in times of need as they do not know where to seek support for various challenges. This is compounded by the limited social networks they have in Singapore.”

There are women who remain “invisible and voiceless” largely due to their immigration status, said Ms Shailey Hingorani, head of research and advocacy at the Association of Women for Action and Research. PHOTO: AWARE

Lowest family income, highest level of conflict

In 2019, 4,426 Singaporean men wed non-resident brides – making up one in five marriages involving at least one citizen, according to the Government’s Population In Brief 2020 report.

A recent landmark study on cross-national families by Professor Jean Yeung, founding director of the Centre for Family and Population Research at the National University of Singapore, and PhD student Shuya Lu, shed light on these families. 

In 2018 and 2019, the researchers interviewed 3,121 women who were the primary caregivers of Singaporean children aged up to six years old. 

It found that 18 per cent of these families had a wife born overseas and a Singapore-born husband, and 57 per cent had both parents born here.

The other families are those with a Singapore-born mum and a foreign-born dad and families with both parents born overseas.

The top five countries the foreign-born wives in the study are born in are China (26 per cent), Malaysia (25 per cent), Vietnam (14 per cent), Indonesia (11 per cent) and the Philippines (7 per cent).

 

The study also found that the level of family conflict is inversely related to family income.

The pressures of making ends meet often stress a marriage, and families with a foreign-born wife and a Singapore-born husband had the highest level of family conflict.

Social workers say Prof Yeung’s study confirms what they have been observing on the ground for years: that many of the Singaporean men who marry foreign wives are older, less educated and are low-wage workers. 

And given the financial, legal and other challenges many of these women face, the study confirms the vulnerability of these foreign wives, they say.

Foreign wives of Singaporean men attend a class at the Archdiocesan Commission for the Pastoral Care of Migrant and Itinerant People. PHOTO: ALPHONSUS CHERN

Shaky foundation to marriage

Foreign women married to low-income Singapore men are particularly vulnerable to family violence and marital woes, social workers note. 

Women interviewed for this story said their marriages were not arranged by matchmaking or “mail-order bride” agencies.

The couples had met instead through friends, social media, or while the Singaporean was holidaying or working in their country. 

One reason these marriages are particularly vulnerable is that the couples tied the knot after a brief courtship and do not know each other well. 

Sister Sylvia Ng, case manager at the Archdiocesan Commission for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, said some of these couples had “shaky foundations” to their marriages.

They may have met only a few times before saying I do or they may not even share a common language, she said.

Ms Amanda Chong, co-founder of volunteer group Readable, has conducted a research study on migrant brides. Many of the women felt that Singaporean men can provide for them. PHOTO: JASON LAI

Ms Amanda Chong, whose research study on migrant brides was published in the Harvard Journal of Law and Gender in 2014, said that many of these women she interviewed told her they wed a Singaporean as an “economic strategy”.

Ms Chong, who co-founded Readable, a volunteer group that teaches children from disadvantaged families literacy and numeracy, added: “They feel that Singaporean men can provide for them and their children will have more opportunities here than in their own countries.”

The women often depend on their husbands to support them financially and to sponsor their long-term visit pass (LTVP), she added.

So some choose to stay in abusive or strained marriages, as they fear being separated from their children should their husbands cancel their LTVP if they ask for a divorce, social workers say. 

Siti is a case in point.

The LTVP holder had once considered divorce, but banished the thought for fear of never seeing her children again. 

“So I just tolerated everything,” she said, adding that her relationship with her husband has improved over time.

The Immigration and Checkpoints Authority, however, has said that Singaporeans cannot unilaterally cancel their foreign spouse’s LTVP or long-term visit pass-plus (LTVP+) without their spouse’s consent – a fact which social workers say many foreign wives may not know.

[aaur4man]

ok what is the purpose of this article

[ManOfTheHour]

7 minutes ago, aaur4man said:

ok what is the purpose of this article

some sorta women empowerment again? Like as if men have no fucking problems in this world

How about interviewing all the male foreign workers who are so fucking lonely cos society shun them as "smelly" etc