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Singapore: It is Sunday in Singapore, the servants’ day off, and the parks are brimming with them. They lounge on picnic rugs and nibble at packed lunches, shaking off the week’s cooking, cleaning and raising other people’s kids by dancing to trending social media choreography and snapping happy-faced selfies.

Others gather at the Orchard Road shopping strip, a beacon of wealth, treating themselves to ice-cream sandwiches or glamour-posing in front of luxury-brand shops they will never step inside.

Some of the helpers hanging out on Orchard Road on Sunday.Credit: Zach Hope

Singapore has more than 300,000 migrant domestic workers, or “helpers”, as they’re euphemistically called, on the books, according to the awkwardly named Ministry of Manpower (MoM). That’s in a population of 6 million people.

All are women, for that’s one of the MoM’s rules. All are from economically disadvantaged regional neighbours, predominantly the Philippines and Indonesia. That’s a rule, too.

This extraordinary workforce allows mothers respite or the opportunity to get back to paid work. It eases the burden on the childcare system, allowing families such as ours to secure a place at a near-moment’s notice at a child care centre and the freedom to swap days as we please. Pull out the helpers tomorrow and watch Singapore, the envy of South-East Asia, collapse.

The problem is, the system is premised on profound sadness.........

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