An employment agency in Singapore was fined S$5,000 (US$3,689) by a State Court on Thursday after pleading guilty to bringing a 14-year-old Myanmar girl into the country to work as a foreign maid.
Casa Employment Specialist was charged with breaching employment agency licence conditions. The accused failed to ensure that a foreign migrant worker met the minimum age requirement for a domestic worker of 23 years old, Lianhe Wanbao (Singapore) reported, citing a press statement issued by the Ministry of Manpower.
In July 2017, during an interview to support her application as a domestic worker, the Myanmar girl told the officers of the Ministry of Manpower that she was in fact only 14 years old.
The ministry thus rejected her work application, and ordered Casa to send the underage woman back to her home country.
The ministry’s investigation found that Casa depended only on the information provided by an overseas agency and failed to verify personal details of prospective maids.
Over the last three years, the authorities have taken action against 98 agencies for failing to ensure that foreign domestic workers met the minimum age requirement.
Offenders found guilty of a breach of Section 23(5) of the Employment Agencies Act are liable to fines of up to S$5,000, or up to six months’ imprisonment, or both.
The ministry can also revoke the licence of any offending agency, and force it to forfeit its security deposit.
Read: Agencies charged for hiring Myanmar girls aged 13 as maids