|
|
"You
go down New York, Broadway. You will see the beggars, people of
the streets...Where are the beggars in Singapore? Show me."
Lee Kuan Yew
|
The
Tuth About Poverty
THERE
IS THIS MYTH THAT Singapore is a rich country and its citizens
are well-taken care of. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The 1998 United Nations Human Development Index showed that
Singapore ranked 28 on the list behind countries like Barbados
and Malta.
In
fact many households earn so little that they cannot afford to
give their children pocket-money for school, resulting in the
students going hungry for the day. The following is a snapshot of
some of the more recent cases uncovered:
In
1999, nearly 2,000 children did not attend school because their
parents could not afford it. Mohammad Hirwan is one such child.
His parents earn about US $600 a month, hardly sufficient for a
family in Singapore. As a result the boy\'s parents had to take
him out of school when he was nine. His siblings did not fare
any better. All of them dropped out of school because of
poverty.
A
technician lost his job and had no income for about half a year
had to watch his two young children live on biscuits for days. A
social worker said that the man had no money even to take the
bus to find a job. The family was literally penniless.
A
man with a wife who suffered from manic depression, asthma and
diabetes had to stay home to look after her. Whenever he found
some contract work, his children took turns to skip school to
watch over her. The family had to survive on US$200 a month they
received from welfare organizations.
A
young divorcee cannot find enough money to but schoolbooks and
food for her children. Most days, by 10pm, her sons ask if there
is any more food. They cannot afford to eat and live mainly on
fried rice.
The
elderly poor in Singapore lead just as tragic lives. Many have
to, literally, work until they die:
An
elderly woman in her seventies was fatally run over by a
hit-and-run driver as she was returning home at 6:40 am, working
as a night-shift toilet cleaner. Not only did the elderly lady
have to toil in the night shift, her pay was so meagre that she
could not even afford to eat lunch. To top it off she had to
save to help take care of her 50-year old mentally retarded
daughter.
Another
septuagenarian woman worked as cleaner for a measly US$200 a
month which she had to share with her 70-year-old sister. The
sisters are so hard-up that even vegetables during meal-times
are a luxury.
A
77-year-old toilet cleaner was on his way home around midnight
after work. He couldn't afford the fare for a bus ride and had
to walk home. He was hit and killed by a car.
A
96-year-old woman has to go to the garbage dump to pick out odds
and ends to sell to support herself.
A
76-year-old man ran a little business selling household
provisions. His paltry income had to support middle-aged
daughters who are wheelchair bound and suffering from polio
since birth, and a wife who is senile and incapable of looking
after herself. His problems took a dramatic turn for the worse
when the Government upped the rental of his shop from US$150 to
US$450 a month.
Below
are some statistical indicators of the poor in Singapore:
In
1999 monthly wages for low-skilled workers decreased by as much
as 34 percent.
Nearly
30 percent of households were not earning enough to afford the
minimum standard of living. The Government estimates that the
subsistence level in Singapore is US$600 for a household of four
people—a conservative figure for a country that is
consistently ranked among the most expensive cities in the world
to live in.
Between
1998 and 1999, the average household monthly income of the
poorest 10 percent of the population decreased by nearly 50
percent. The following year, the figure nose-dived by another 54
percent.
In
1990, the richest 10 percent of households earned 15.6 times
more than the poorest 10 percent. (Households with no
income-earners are excluded from this category.) By 2000, the
gap widened: the richest 10 percent earned 36 times more than
the poorest 10 percent.
The
number of households with monthly incomes of less than $3,000
was 40 percent in 1998 but increased to 42 percent in 1999.
According
to the 2000 Census, 12.6 per cent of households earned less than
$1,000 per month. A monthly gross total household income of
$1,500 and below is considered “poor” in Singapore.
A
more recent survey found that 16 per cent of the respondents had
family members who often went hungry.
In
2004 37,823 households could not afford to buy their own flats
or rent homes in the open market.
Because
of the system, an increasing number of Singaporeans are driven to
seek the help of mental professionals:
In
1990 there were 88,000 such cases. This figure escalated to
147,000 in 1998.
In
1990 only 8.4 percent of Singaporeans suffered from neurotic
disorders such as anxiety and depression. In 1998 16.6 percent
succumbed to these disorders. (This problem continues into the
present with a newspaper report highlighting that more people
are being diagnosed with mental disorders due to financial
woes.)
In
1997, psychiatrists noted a sharp increase in the number of
teenagers attempting suicide and attributed the phenomenon to
the youths being alienated from their parents. The main reason
cited is the stressful lifestyle and high cost of living.
In
1999, a consumer health survey found that among the various
Asian societies, Singaporeans are most likely to have suffered
depression, stress, and fatigue. In addition, job-related
stresses continue to be the biggest problems for working
Singaporeans.
In
2003, a study found that Singaporeans aged between 20 and 49
years made up 70 percent of suicide cases from 1997 to 2001.
They also constitute the main bulk of cases of attempted
suicides.
Between
1994 and 1998 the number of divorces shot up from 3,772 to 5,651
cases.
Social
workers attribute this occurrence to intense stress experienced
by workers who have households, children and aging parents to
take care. National figures compiled by the Registry of Births
and Deaths show that on average, 1 person takes his/her own life
in Singapore every day.
Visitors
often remark about the tidiness and orderliness of Singapore. It
is because of such an impression that makes the cases of poverty
described in the earlier paragraphs so hard to believe.
The
reason why the poor in Singapore are not more visible is that the
Ministry of Community Development and Sports conduct frequent
raids through its Destitute Persons Service, looking for and
picking up vagrants. If Singapore seems to have less destitute,
it is not because the numbers are not present. The real reason is
that the PAP Government is just much more efficient in clearing
the streets of homeless people.
For
all the hype claiming that Singapore is a near-paradise, 20
percent of its citizens indicated that they want to leave the
country, predominantly because of the stressful lifestyle and
high cost of living. These would-be émigrés are
mainly from the strata of younger, higher-income professionals.
With
the costs of living rising, or at least not decreasing, and wages
continuing to be depressed, Singaporeans are going to facing
increasingly dire economic times. Without any rights, their
problems will persist.
|
|
