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So the world around celebrates International Migrants Day today. And what better way to celebrate it in Singapore but for politicians to spend it with the migrant workers.
That’s precisely what Minister of State for Manpower Teo Ser Luck did. He toured a migrant workers’ dormitory recently.
Last night (17 Dec 2015), he did a blog post which detailed his tour of the dormitory.
But guess what, the blog post which was shared on the MOM’s Facebook page showed a picture of MOS Teo half-lying on a worker’s bed.
The caption read:
“I learnt that some workers prefer to sleep without a mattress as they are used to it back in their home country.”
This got quite a few netizens riled up, with some saying that the comments were insensitive.
Even BBC jumped in to report on the news.
But here’s the thing. It seems the the Facebook photo and caption were put up not by MOS Teo, but by MOM’s Facebook Administrator. It put out a statement on its Facebook page:
We understand that many of you have expressed concerns over a Facebook photo featuring MOS Teo Ser Luck visiting a…
Posted by Singapore Ministry of Manpower on Friday, 18 December 2015
The visit by MOS Teo as well as Minister of State Sam Tan was to show appreciation to the workers who have contributed much to the development of Singapore.
The statement said it best:
“… we would like to appeal to the public to refocus our attention on showing appreciation to our foreign workers. Our work to improve the experiences of foreign workers in Singapore will continue through the joint efforts of the tripartite partners, NGOs and the general public.”
But, it does look like someone needs to learn to be a better social media user…
