Nations Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process in May 2011. The government either rejected outright or contested the premises of many recommendations for improvements in civil and political rights. Concerns cited included the use of preventive detention, the use of defamation suits to silence critics, restrictions on public protests, regular use of corporal punishment for a wide range of crimes, and criminalization of same-sex relations between men.

“Singapore’s claims of exemption from human rights standards are just lame excuses for abuses,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The people of Singapore deserve the same rights as everyone else, not more clever stories justifying government oppression.”

Singapore. Ban foreign domestic workers in Singapore from dangerous practices such as the cleaning of exterior window panes – that was the rallying cry of about 1,000 such workers who gathered yesterday at Kallang Theatre to celebrate Mother’s Day.

The event – organized for the first time by the Humanitarian Organization for Migration Economics (Home), a non-government group – featured performances by the workers, who also shared stories of their employment here.

The festivities were mixed with calls by both activists and the workers to improve safety standards for the migrant community here.

Eight Indonesian foreign domestic workers have died this year while cleaning windows, hanging out laundry or hanging up curtains in high-rise flats.

Between 2007 and last year, 69 workers here fell from such flats, and 24 of them died.

“These women came here to make a living, and they’re returning home in coffins because of window-cleaning. It’s outrageous,” said Bridget Tan, the president of Home.

The group plans to collect 1,000 signed petitions to ban the practice here and submit them to Minister of State for Manpower Tan Chuan-Jin.

Home will also reach out to the embassies of countries such as the Philippines and Myanmar, which send large numbers of workers here, to persuade them to enact tougher protection laws.

Minister of State for Community Development, Youth and Sports Halimah Yacob, who was the guest of honor at yesterday’s event, said the government has introduced measures to improve workers’ welfare, such as a mandatory weekly rest day, to take effect from next year.

She noted in her speech that domestic workers continue to be among the most vulnerable groups of workers: “Unlike other workers, (they) can feel isolated as they work in individual homes.”

“They need support and encouragement, especially when they first arrive here, and are beginning to adapt to the new environment and their employers’ expectations,” she said. –Strai

The ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) has concluded a series of meetings from 6 to 10 May 2012 in Bangkok, the Kingdom of Thailand; the Fifth Meeting of AICHR on the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration (AHRD), the Ninth Meeting of AICHR and the first Regional Consultation on the AHRD. The meetings and consultation were chaired by H.E. Om Yentieng, Senior Minister and President of the Cambodian Human Rights Committee (CHRC), the Representative of Cambodia and Chair of AICHR.

The Fifth Meeting on the AHRD discussed the various sections of the AHRD, and they will resume their discussion at the Sixth Meeting in Yangon, Myanmar on 3 – 6 June 2012.

AICHR held their Ninth Meeting where they discussed the Annual Report of AICHR, covering AICHR activities from July 2011 – June 2012, which will be submitted to the ASEAN Foreign Ministers Meeting (AMM). AICHR had discussed the priority programmes/activities for 2013, as well as discussed the implementation of the priority programmes/activities in 2012. AICHR has approved the Concept Paper and budget on the thematic study on Migration and Human Rights in ASEAN.

In relation to AICHR’s mandate to develop the AHRD, AICHR conducted the first Regional Consultation on the AHRD with various ASEAN Sectoral Bodies. The Sectoral Bodies were invited to share their views, expertise and concerns on their respective Sectoral that will contribute to enriching the draft AHRD.

The Meeting expressed appreciation to the Host, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Thailand, for the hospitality and excellent arrangements for the Meeting. –ASEAN News Desk

As finance ministers from Southeast Asia and elsewhere around the world gathered in Manila last week for the annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the stated focus was on “inclusive growth,” including how to help ensure the region’s future economic development better reaches all people in the Asia-Pacific region – still home to the vast majority of the world’s poor.

There were seminars on Asia’s response to the global economic crisis, on disaster risk management and on climate change. There was also a clamoring by some at the ADB to figure out a way to resume lending and other assistance to Myanmar.

With the recent naming of Dartmouth University president Jim Yong Kim, a Korean-American, as the head of the World Bank, there is also the first real challenge to the United States’ effective 66-year lock on that institution’s presidency, and whether one day, change might also come to Japan’s 45-year lock on the ADB presidency and other key posts at that institution.

One thing we sdid not hear about though is the simple truth that the path to more sustained economic growth, whether among the members of the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean), or elsewhere, will mean a focused battle against a rising tide of bureaucracy, regulation, interventionism and cronyism – not the now famous acronym for large emerging economies Brazil, Russia, India and China, but a new, lower-cased “bric” if you well.

Some 10 years ago, Goldman Sachs economist Jim O’Neill helped coin the acronym “BRICs” for the large, high-growth emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China, and spurred on an industry of American pessimists and Asian optimists. On one side of the Pacific, in the midst of the US’s slow-to-no growth economy, some pundits argue that the rise of the BRICs means the inevitable decline of the US and the leading European economies, as well as of the open trade and rules-based system that they have long advocated for and benefited from. Here on the other side of the Pacific, others argue that a new, more balanced Asia-driven economic model will lead the way forward to future growth, out of the ashes of the most recent global financial crisis.

Yet, it is not the rise of the BRICs or some expanded iteration – South Africa has officially joined the club, with the fourth summit of the BRICS taking place this March in Delhi – that policy-makers meeting in Manila concerned about jobs and anaemic economic growth need worry about the most. Ironically, while the Asia-Pacific region has survived the global financial crisis relatively well so far, this bureaucracy-regulation-interventionism-cronyism juggernaut may well in the long run stymie the sustainable rise of the BRICs and other emerging economies in developing Asia.

Already we are seeing the continuing slowing of the Chinese economy, and continued constraints on India’s growth. The ADB’s “Asian Development Outlook 2012″ projects China’s 2012 GDP growth rate at 8.5 per cent and India’s at 7 per cent, still well below historical highs. Overall growth for developing Asia is projected at 6.9 per cent for 2012, with tremendous variation from Fiji, at 1 per cent to China. Inflation is also seen as posing a particular challenge in Vietnam, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Truth be told, when it comes to the new “bric”, national leaders from the US to the Asia-Pacific have not set the best example for the rest of the developed and developing world. Policy-makers should ponder the following:

Bureaucracy: While Singapore and Hong Kong generally receive strong positive assessments for the performance of their high-paid civil servants, the track record is much less positive elsewhere in the region, with continued calls for the dismantling of large government bureaucracies. Yet, whether in Asia or outside the region, a real fight against bureaucracy is less about new organisation charts, but about assessing what works and what doesn’t, and getting rid of the latter. It’s not just the size, but also the quality, of the bureaucracy that matters.

Regulations: In many an Asia-Pacific nation, businesses and investors are not simply challenged by too many regulations, but also by unequally applied and unevenly enforced regulations. Clearly, not all regulation is bad, but policy-makers must ask if we are at a point where ill-timed or excessive regulations are getting in the way of economic progress by imposing too high an economic cost. In a recently released report, “Red Tape Rising: Obama-Era Regulation at the Three Year Mark”, James Gattuso and Diane Katz noted that in the last year some 32 regulations have been added that together impose more than US$10 billion in annual costs and $6.6 billion in one-time implementation costs on the US economy. Near-term job creation and growth in Asia may likewise be losing out to red tape and regulatory excess.

Interventionism: From the questionable effectiveness of the US Federal Reserve in short-term job creation – recall, the critics in Asia and elsewhere of the US’s so-called quantitative easing, which may well have contributed to inflation elsewhere around the world – to the US and European bailouts and interventions in industries from automotives to banking and insurance, government involvement in business seems to be increasingly accepted as par for the course. In the Asia-Pacific region, particularly in economies such as China and India, we also continue to see the increasing hand of government in picking winners and losers, often distorting the market in favour of national players. Policy-makers need to ensure such interventions, if any, are limited and a matter of last resort. Too often, government interventions and inefficiency go hand in hand.

Cronyism: In much of developing Asia, crony capitalism and corruption are unfortunately associated with too many an emerging economy, with perpetrators often free from any accountability under relatively weak judicial systems. The Occupy Wall Street movement, for all its detractors, brought needed attention to the US’s own version of crony capitalism. The Occupy movement in Asia, hunger strikes by Indian activitists and the efforts of Transparency International and others have sought likewise to bring attention to shortcomings in our region. Clearly, in the US, allegations of favouritism or leniency in cases ranging from now bankrupt solar company Solyndra to failed futures broker MF Global must be investigated and people held accountable if the American Main Street is to regain confidence in US systems of governance. That same principle must apply in Asia.

Amidst all the talk in Manila at the ADB annual meeting of the relative growth of Asean members, the BRICs, and other emerging economies – growth that should be welcomed by all – there will no doubt be understandable pride in the international financial institution’s having approved some $14 billion in financing operations last year for developing Asia – much of it for core infrastructure projects. The figure jumps to some $24 billion if the figure includes money from partners.

Sometimes though, the debate needs to be more than about the money. Policy-makers should be focused first and foremost on helping put an end to growing constraints on business innovation and on stopping capital misallocations driven by bureaucracy, regulation, interventionism and cronyism. That would be welcome news from the ADB and do more than anything else to get people back to work and help position the region as a leader in sustainable, economic growth.

It would also be a powerful message and example to the development experts who too often dare not speak the truth about the real constraints to growth.

Curtis S Chin served as the US ambassador to the Asian Development Bank under presidents George W Bush and Barack Obama. He is now a senior fellow and executive-in-residence with the Asian Institute of Technology, and a managing director with RiverPeak Group. –Curtis S Chin, http://www.nationmultimedia.com/opinion/Asean-needs-to-focus-on-the-real-challenges-to-gro-30181697.html

The Indonesian government is urging ASEAN member nations to implement the 2007 Cebu Declaration to protect migrant workers in the region.

Manpower and Transmigration Minister Muhaimin Iskandar said in a speech to the ASEAN Labor Ministers Meeting in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on Thursday that Indonesia would continue to support ASEAN’s committee on migrant workers as it implemented the declaration and International Labor Organization (ILO) standards to provide protections to migrant workers.  

“We know that migrant workers, who are particularly vulnerable, have contributed socially and economically to both destination and sending countries in ASEAN. Therefore, it is a must for ASEAN to put in place an operational instrument to promote and protect their rights before 2015,” he said.

Muhaimin was referring to the poor protection of migrant workers, including those from Indonesia, in Malaysia.

Indonesia issued a ban on allowing Indonesians to work in Malaysia from 2006 to 2011 following rampant violence directed against migrant workers in the nation. Despite the recent lifting of the ban, the government has suspended the resumption of sending Indonesian workers to Malaysia until it received assurances that Malaysia would protection its workers.

The government has been under fire and urged to freeze the diplomatic ties with Malaysia following the recent shooting deaths of three Indonesians in Negeri Sembilan.

According to the ASEAN Migrant Workers Task Force, eight Indonesian women migrant workers have died in work-related accidents in Singapore in the past four months alone.

Cambodia has also issued a ban on its citizens seek work in Malaysia following the torture of a Cambodian migrant worker in that nation last year.

The minister also asked the committee to facilitate coordination among member nations in implementing the declaration and its evaluation.

According to the declaration, which was signed by all of ASEAN’s member nations in Cebu, the Philippines, in January 2007, receiving states and sending nations are required to strengthen the political, economic and social pillars of the ASEAN Community by promoting the potential and dignity of migrant workers in a climate of freedom, equity, and stability in accordance with the laws, regulations, and policies of respective ASEAN member nations.

It also stipulates that receiving and sending states must take into account the fundamental rights and dignity of migrant workers and their family members already residing with them without undermining the application of the receiving states of their laws, regulations and policies; and nothing in the present declaration shall be interpreted as implying the regularization of the situation of migrant workers who are undocumented.

Muhaimin also underlined the importance of Indonesia’s commitment to implementing the ASEAN Labor Ministers’ 2010–2015 Work Plan and benchmarking the international instruments such as 1990 UN Convention on protection of migrant workers and their families and ILO Convention No. 189/2011 on decent work for domestic helpers in the region.

“In addition, the issue of youth employment is also very important for ASEAN member states. We could explore possible collaboration on youth employment from the skills development and social protection perspective,” he said.

David Peters, (right), and Luke Whited, a gay couple who were joined in a civil union in their home state of Illinois, show their rings inside the Bourbon Pub, a gay bar, after being interviewed about Obama’s statement of support of gay marriage, in New Orleans, on Wednesday. –Ridwan Max Sijabat, The Jakarta Post

The ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office (Amro) established by the Philippines and its neighbors is expected to help the countries improve their crisis-prevention ability amid a backdrop of global economic uncertainties.

Consequently, according to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (Central Bank of the Philippines), countries in the region are expected to attract more investors who are in search of safe havens as industrialized countries in the West continue to grapple with economic and debt problems.

Amro is a body formed to conduct regular surveillance of the economic performance of member-countries of the ASEAN+3, and to come up with prescriptions in case of deteriorating indicators of economic health.

Diwa Guinigundo, deputy governor of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, said central bank officials of countries from the ASEAN+3 last week agreed to give all the resources that Amro needs to effectively fulfill its mandate and to help the region shield itself from ill effects of shocks from other parts of the globe.

Amro will assume a surveillance function for the selected Asian countries and that is similar to what the International Monetary Fund does for its member-countries globally.

Central bankers from countries belonging to the ASEAN+3 met last week in Manila on the sidelines of the 45th annual meeting of the Board of Governors of the Asian Development Bank to discuss measures to strengthen their economies and improve the region’s ability to cope with challenges.

Guinigundo said the Amro, which was officially created last year but is expected to start full operations this year following the meeting of the region’s central bankers last week, will complement the move of ASEAN+3 to double the size of its pool of pledged funds to US$240 billion. –Michelle V. Remo, Asia News Network (Philippine Daily Inquirer)