ALONG with 42 other men, Bangladeshi Md Zakir Hossain Md Yousuf Ali arrived in Singapore in February, hoping to build a better life for himself and his family.

The next day, they packed into a lorry. They thought they were on their way to work.

Instead, they were taken a short distance from their living quarters on Kian Teck Drive near Boon Lay to their employer's Benoi Road office.

Once there, they were locked inside a partly-roofed fenced-up space next to the office.

Dubbing it 'the cage', Mr Md Zakir Hossain, 24, said the same thing happened day after day, with no proper work given to them.

He claimed they had not been paid either.

He said through a translator: 'We stayed in the cage the whole day doing nothing. We were not allowed to lie down or sleep.

'If we did, the bosses would scold us or pour water on us. They treated us like animals.'

The New Paper met 40 of these workers who had run away and sought help. The Manpower Ministry (MOM) is investigating their complaints.

The workers come from three companies, Han's Marine, San's Marine Engineering Service and K 7 Engineering, which the men claim are run by the same people.

The address of all three companies is 37 Benoi Road.

The first three men left their dormitory and did not go back on 1 Sep. Then on 21 Sep, 12 more left, followed by another 25 last Sunday.

Those from the final batch said they decided to leave after MOM officers turned up at the 'cage' on 26 Sep and interviewed them.

Mr Md Zakir Hossain, who is employed by Han's Marine, said they were sent to the 'cage' as their bosses did not want them to be seen doing nothing at the dormitory during the day.

He said the same thing happened to subsequent batches of workers who arrived in Singapore.

'Every month, there would be 20, 30, 40 new workers. But they also didn't get any proper jobs,' he said.

There would be 80 to 100 workers in the 'cage' each time, he added.

Occasional jobs

Once in a while, some of them would be deployed to do cleaning or general work for other companies, he claimed.

They are listed as marine trades workers in their work permits.

'Even when they sent us to do some work, we didn't get any pay. The company would deduct money for food, lodging and even laundry,' he claimed.

Mr Md Zakir Hossain also alleged that the workers were made to sign papers indicating that they were paid their salaries.

The workers said they would also sometimes be taken out of the 'cage' to clean their employer's office, company lorry or even their bosses' cars.

Like the other workers, Mr Md Zakir Hossain said he had learnt pipe-fitting work at a training centre in Dhaka for eight months.

He paid an agent more than $8,000 to get a work permit to work in Singapore, and was promised a basic salary of $17 a day.

After three months, it was supposed to go up to $23 a day.

But since arriving here, he said he hadn't earned a cent.

At one time, there were close to 400 workers like this, he said. Some have since returned to Bangladesh.

The workers estimated that about 250 men remain in the dormitory. They said the conditions are terrible as hundreds of them are squashed into a big room on the second storey of a former warehouse.

'It's so crowded that we cannot move around. There is no window and only two fans,' Mr Md Zakir Hossainsaid.

'When we are sick, they give us Panadol. Even when one man had chicken pox, they gave him Panadol. They wouldn't send the sick people to the doctor.'

K 7 Engineering worker Abdul Kalam Azad Late Abdus, 36, alleged that they were beaten up every time they asked about work or money.

'If they feel you talk too much, they take you to a room in the office building and then punch and kick you,' he claimed.

The men said they ran away as they had had enough. All they have are the clothes on their backs.

They have been issued special passes by the MOM. A ministry spokesman confirmed that it conducted an inspection at 37 Benoi Road on 26 Sep.

But the workers woes have not ended as they are not allowed to find other work while under the special pass.

'We have no money, no work and no place to stay,' said Mr Abdul Kalam, adding that some of them put up with friends while others sleep on the sidewalks.

Every weekday evening, the workers turn to a restaurant on Desker Road which offers free food to Bangladeshis with employment-related issues or who are on special passes.

They noted that their companies did not appear to have any work for them.

Said one: 'All of us want to know why our work permits were issued when the companies didn't have any work for us.'

Fenced-up area for 'training' workers

WHEN The New Paper called one of the owners of San's Marine, he directed us to his HR manager, who gave his name only as Mr Nathan.

Mr Nathan denied any wrongdoing or ill-treatment of his workers and said he did not know why his company was in the news.

When asked about the 'cage', he said: 'There's no cage. It's a fenced-up area meant for training workers.'

He explained that the workers are under an 'upgrading scheme'.

'They are only general workers who are not qualified, so we have to train them. I don't know how they made it here in the first place,' said Mr Nathan.

He said the company has about 300 workers, and that only nine of them had left.

When queried, he said the company had been in operation for a year but that the owners had 15 years of experience.

Mr Nathan claimed that as he was from San's Marine, he didn't know anything about Han's Marine or K 7 Engineering.

He refused to comment further, except to reiterate that his company was not in the wrong.

When asked, the workers told The New Paper that they did not receive any training there.

TV crew stopped by security guard

NEWS network Al Jazeera English broke the story last month after its correspondent, Mr Tony Birtley, visited the San's Marine office.

In a telephone interview from Sri Lanka, he told The New Paper that he saw about 30 migrant workers in uniformed overalls sitting in a fenced-off area next to the office.

'I found out that the workers called it 'the cage',' said Mr Birtley.

He was investigating how Bangladeshi workers were being ripped-off in organised false job scams. When he confronted two men, who claimed to be the owners, they got aggressive and hurled vulgarities.

'They hit our microphone and camera, and one of them pointed his finger in my face,' he said, adding that they refused to give their names.

Mr Birtley asked to see documents showing that the workers were doing the jobs they were supposed to be doing, but the owners refused.

'They said the workers were not illegally deployed, and that they were in the fenced-up area to undergo training,' he said.

Mr Birtley and his team filmed the workers in the fenced-up area as well as the encounter with the owners and subsequently posted their report on the Al Jazeera English YouTube channel.They also tried to enter the workers' dormitory but were stopped by a security guard.

The guard confirmed there were 300 workers living there.

Mr Birtley managed to speak to two frightened workers on condition of anonymity. 'They said that those who complained were beaten up,' he said.

The Manpower Ministry inspected the company's premises after Al Jazeera's report.

This article was first published in The New Paper on Oct 4, 2008.