Jade Rasif said that she had her Instagram story taken down after she responded to a Reddit thread titled ‘’No Indians No PRCs’: Singapore’s rental discrimination problem’.
In another Instagram story on Monday (Dec 14), Ms Rasif wrote that she shared a post by website wakeupsingapore and that was taken down as well.
“@wakeupsingapores post was removed by IG (and this my last igst was deleted too,”) she wrote, adding that she compiled her thoughts on the issue in a blogpost.
In a blogpost titled ‘Musings On Race and Rent’, Ms Rasif continued the discussion by posing the following questions: “Should this (racial discrimination by landlords) be something we legislate? Are certain racial groups better tenants than others? If I flip the question to focus on gender discrimination, should I force a woman to rent her spare room to a man?”
The former DJ shared that a survey by yougov.com last year found that one in four renters faced racial discrimination.
Additionally, the same survey found that 65 per cent of landlords thought that it was compulsory for them to have information on their tenants nationality.
She shared that according to the Council of Estate Agents (CEA), “Property agents are not allowed to place advertisements that are discriminatory, offensive, or stereotype any particular race, religion or group in society. They are also not allowed to indicate a preference for any ethnicity in all advertisements, unless for compliance with government regulations such as the Ethnic Integration Policy. It is the duty of property agents to inform their clients of the need to adhere to these guidelines”.
“Property agents who breach any of these guidelines can either be issued a written warning, or be subjected to disciplinary action which may result in suspension or revocation of licence or registration”.
Ms Rasif then wrote that “proposing anti-discrimination laws sound good in theory, but they haven’t worked so well overseas. (US FHA, EU RED etc)”.
“The main issue with these methods is that discrimination is hard to prove, and when you ban a behaviour, it doesn’t go away. You get vague responses such as profile doesn’t match”, she added.
She concluded her post by saying: “If education is the key to tolerance, perhaps it’s time we explored ethno-diversity in schools alongside racial harmony”.
Since April, Ms Rasif has been volunteering as a front-liner in the healthcare sector and was converted into full-time staff several months later.
/TISG