Almost 1,000 cases of assault involving migrant workers at dormitories from 2020 to 2022: Sun Xueling

SINGAPORE — There were 990 cases of assault involving migrant workers at dormitories that were reported to the police between 2020 and 2022.

These included cases of fights and rioting, Ms Sun Xueling, Minister of State for Home Affairs, said in Parliament on Tuesday (Feb 7).

Based on past numbers, it appears that such incidents last year were significantly higher than in 2020 and 2021.

From 2020 to 2021, there were a total of about 550 cases of hurt to persons in migrant worker dormitories. This was based on data given by Home Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam last February in Parliament and included incidents of affray and rioting involving migrant workers.

This means that in 2022 alone, there were about 440 similar cases.

Ms Sun — who is also Minister of State for Social and Family Development — gave the latest 990 figure in response to a question by Mr Murali Pillai, Member of Parliament for Bukit Batok.

He was asking how many incidents of assault involving migrant workers at dormitories have been reported to the police, and how many of these incidents had racial undertones.

Ms Sun said that a "minority of the cases" involved persons of different races, and none were reported to be racially motivated. She did not give exact figures.

Elaborating on the proactive steps taken to reduce the risk of such cases of assault, Ms Sun said that the police work with dormitory operators on safety and security issues.

"The operators are required as part of licensing conditions under the Ministry of Manpower, to put in place security arrangements, including closed-circuit television systems and deployment of security officers," she added.

"The police also work with the operators to engage dormitory residents on crime prevention and safety and security matters."

Last month, the police told TODAY that nine men aged between 24 and 54 are assisting with investigations into a case of rioting at a migrant workers' dormitory in Changi.

In one part of a video of the fight on Jan 17, eight men are seen throwing punches and shouting at each other at a staircase.