A/HRC/17/40/Add.2 Singaporean population. Indeed, these recent migrants had in some instances been perceived as taking away jobs from Singaporean citizens, threatening Singaporean families, affecting the fragile national demographic balance or raising security concerns when foreign workers’ dormitories are built close to residential areas. In fact, whereas numerous interlocutors recognized that there were today fewer tensions between the so-called “old” communities (i.e., ethnic Chinese, ethnic Malays, ethnic Indians and others) residing in Singapore since independence, they also acknowledged that new challenges had surfaced in terms of interactions between the old and newly arrived communities. 50. There was also a perception among some civil society interlocutors that the Government seemed to favour migrant workers from certain countries, in particular from China. According to these interlocutors, the rationale behind this policy would be to maintain the ethnic Chinese population above the critical threshold of 75 per cent. In this context, the interlocutors would like the authorities to provide them with more information, so that the parameters used to design immigration policy, in particular when relating to employment, may be more open and transparent. 51. The Special Rapporteur believes that the concerns described above, if unaddressed in a timely and open manner by the Government, could alter the peaceful coexistence of the great variety of ethnic and national groups residing in the country. This could indeed lead to generalized resentment against foreigners in Singapore and thus to overt xenophobic attitudes. In this regard, the Special Rapporteur would like to support the work undertaken by the National Integration Council (NIC), set up in 2009, which seeks to promote and foster social integration among Singaporeans and new immigrants. To that effect, NIC encourages collaborative social integration efforts among the people, the public and the private sectors, through various initiatives at schools, workplaces, in the media and at the community level. According to some civil society interlocutors, however, NIC would mainly focus its work on the social integration of skilled migrant workers and would therefore not pay sufficient attention to those who were unskilled or semi-skilled, who often live in isolation from the rest of the Singaporean society. The Special Rapporteur therefore would like to encourage NIC to include unskilled and semi-skilled migrant workers – who sometimes stay for several years – in their programmes, so that they may also enjoy the benefits of social integration into Singaporean society. 2. Enhancing the living and working conditions of unskilled and semi-skilled migrant workers, including domestic workers 52. While the mandate of the Special Rapporteur does not specifically relate to migrant workers, it is nonetheless concerned with discrimination on the grounds of national or ethnic origin preventing individuals from enjoying, inter alia, just and favourable conditions of work, equal pay for equal work, as well as equality before the law. In this regard, the living and working conditions of migrant workers, in particular of the unskilled and semiskilled ones commonly referred to as “transient workers”, were frequently raised during the mission. 53. The Special Rapporteur was told by virtually all his interlocutors that the authorities had taken numerous and commendable initiatives to prevent and address the manifold human rights violations and sometimes physical abuse suffered by unskilled and semiskilled migrant workers, including domestic workers. These include awareness-raising and education programmes both for employers and employees; the conduct of random interviews of domestic workers during their initial months of employment; the monitoring of employers who change domestic workers frequently; assistance from the Ministry of Manpower in resolving labour disputes through mediation; the imposing of sanctions on employers when workers’ wages are unpaid; and the enhancement of penalties by one and a half times for offences committed by employers against their domestic workers. 16