Yet another maid has died while working in a Malaysian home. We also hear daily of workers who encounter fatal accidents while working in dangerous environments with minimal safety standards.

We have the money to engage maids and workers to work for us. Does that mean that we own them, including their lives?

I think many are treating their workers worse than the slaves of the past. For goodness’ sake, this is 2018.

How can we torture or starve people to death? How can we put people to work in an environment knowing that some of them may die? These people are sons, daughters, fathers, and mothers of someone in their respective countries, can’t we get it?

We learn moral values in schools. We attend places of worship. We talk about morality and religious precepts every other day. We give donations and provide charity. But can we just do one simple thing: stop being evil in our treatment of those who are dependent on us for their livelihoods.

Many of these workers are ignorant, helpless and dependent. That is why they have to work under whatever conditions and circumstances. Do we have the right then to do whatever we want to them?

No doubt the government must regulate and control. But can the government look into every home and every work site? Ultimately, it is always about us upholding the moral standards applying to ourselves and others.

We may talk about good governance, complain against corruption, label others for being depraved and unscrupulous, etc, but there are basic decencies we must all try to uphold. The number of incidents of gross abuse happening in our midst is just too disturbing for us to ignore.

If a dog or cat is abused, we make a hue and cry, hopefully not hypocritically. We harass and seek out the animal abuser both through social pressure and legal means. It is time we do the same to those who abuse their fellow human beings.

TK Chua is an FMT reader.

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.