Stop Sex Trafficking of Children and Young People is a joint global campaign between The Body Shop International and ECPAT (End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and the Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes) International, launched in August 2009, to raise awareness of the scale of the issue of sex trafficking and the sexual exploitation of children and young people.

2010 marks the second year of this campaign of The Body Shop Singapore working with their global campaign partner ECPAT, as well as local campaign partners UNIFEM and H.O.M.E. This year, they are launching a global petition calling upon all governments to give children greater protection against trafficking. The campaign launched islandwide on 5th August 2010.

SIGN THE PETITION NOW:
Support the United Nations International Conventions in calling all governments to build awareness and understanding on the issue of trafficking of children and young people for sexual purposes, as well as to take steps to provide comprehensive protection and specialised services for child and youth survivors of trafficking.

Find out more.

The third largest and fastest growing criminal industry in the world isn’t drugs or petty crime. It is the marketing of humans as commodities, more commonly known as human trafficking.

As a growing criminal activity, human trafficking is not confined to one area of the world. It is a widespread industry that takes place all over the world, in the richest and the poorest countries.

There are more than 1.2 million young people and children being trafficked every single year.

What can be done to slow if not stop this cruel and criminal activity?

One thing we can do as individuals is add our voice to the many that are calling for governments to take action and provide the children and young people in their countries with better protection against trafficking.

You can, for example, sign an online petition that has already got nearly 1 million signatures from concerned people all over the world.

The petition campaign is a joint effort of The Body Shop and ECPAT International, which is a global network of organisations and individuals working together for the elimination of child prostitution, child pornography and the trafficking of children for sexual purposes.

The two organisations, together with local campaign partners H.O.M.E. and UNIFEM Singapore, are calling for people in Singapore to add their support to the campaign and join the call for a stop to this modern-day slave trade.

You can sign the petition here.

 
Arts Engage, a network of local arts practitioners, has on behalf of the local arts community published a position paper renewing the call for the government to regulate rather than censor the arts in Singapore.

The position taken is that “censorship isn’t working: regulate instead.” Arts Engage is seeking support for this stand and started an online drive to get people to add their signatures to the paper.

The position paper will be submitted to the Prime Minister’s Office, the Censorship Review Committee 2009/10, and the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts.

Regulation, the group points out, classifies work into categories (for example, age-appropriate categories) following a set of published guidelines. As a process, it engages and empowers all stakeholders in comparison with censorship, which has a top-down approach.

Guidelines provided in several legal statutes are vague, leading to a constant testing of the “out-of-bounds” markers. ArtsEngage provides a list of works which had been censored and the arbitrary and opaque nature of the censorship process becomes evident.

The trickle-down effects of censorship can be detrimental; all too often, censorship results in disillusionment and self-censorship on the part of creators, and disengagement and passivity on the part of the public.

As consumers, regulation would give us a greater variety of content and the freedom of choice to view whatever we deem as appropriate for ourselves or our children, Arts Engage says.

The end of the censorship regime would also ease the years of friction and tension between the arts community and the authorities. Coupled with greater artistic freedom, it would ultimately aid in the blossoming of our local arts scene.
 

The experience of going to the family court to obtain a Personal Protection Order (PPO) can be daunting and lonely.  Having someone there with you to provide support can make all the difference.

AWARE’s Befriender programme aims to provide this support for women who have been victims of domestic violence and who do not have someone to accompany them to the court.  Support will also be available for women to attend the police station, hospital and other appointments that are difficult to face alone.

I am an expat living in Singapore and an AWARE volunteer.  I have accompanied women to the Family Court as a Befriender for hearings about PPOs and maintenance.  These visits have convinced me of the immense value of AWARE providing such a service.

What struck me most about the women I accompanied was how strong and brave they were.  They were victims of domestic violence, had to leave their homes because of this, and were still working hard to ensure the survival of their children and themselves.  The strongest of women, however, can be disarmed by something as confusing and intimidating as a court hearing when you do not have a lawyer and your husband is sitting across the waiting room from you.

The logistics of the court hearing – registration, purpose of the hearing, what will happen during the hearing – are not necessarily made clear to the applicant.  This is confusing for anyone, and when you’re emotionally and physically exhausted, it can push you near to giving up.

Having a Befriender there to help you with the basics and to assist you in finding out exactly what is going on and where you are supposed to be can take a lot of the unnecessary confusion out of the process.

The Befriender can also accompany the applicant into the courtroom and listen to the hearing.  This can be crucial if the applicant is unclear about the outcome of the hearing; it’s easy to be distracted by the stress of having to speak in front of a judge and a crowded court.

The abusive partner or ex-partner will almost always be in attendance.  They can also attend with as many family members or friends as they wish.  The presence of the Befriender can take some of the strain out of this unnerving situation.  The Befriender can also play a vital role in the applicant’s safety, particularly by making sure that she has a secure way to leave the court.

There is  a great deal of waiting time with court hearings and a Befriender can be someone to simply chat to and pass the time with.

AWARE is running a training programme for Befrienders starting this July.  The training will last six weeks and involve one or two sessions per week, usually in the evenings.  Topics covered will include the role of the Befriender, domestic violence and the relevant law and procedure.

These sessions will ensure the volunteer is equipped with the skills and knowledge required to provide a useful service.  Site visits will also be made to the Family Court and police station as part of the training.

You do not have to be a lawyer to volunteer for the programme.  You do, however, have to be at least 24 years old, have the flexibility to be available for daytime volunteering, and have a desire to provide valuable support to women going through a difficult, often harrowing, process.

Note:  If you are interested to join our Befrienders Team, please email anne.bergen@aware.org.sg or call Anne at 6779 7137.

If you are looking for more info on sexual harassment, see here

They came, they listened carefully, and they left with a new understanding of why it is important for organisations to have a clear policy on workplace sexual harassment.

AWARE launched its Workplace Sexual Harassment programme in late April to a full house of more than 60 participants – mostly human resource (HR) managers and executives – from 46 different organisations.

Lawyer Halijah Mohamad explains the legal implications of sexual harassment at the workplace

The launch included a preview of the workshops AWARE is running in June for HR professionals and others about how to deal with and reduce the risk of sexual harassment at the workplace.

Pei Rong Sim, a senior HR executive at the Singapore Management University, summed up the view of many participants when he said: “It’s a good introduction.  It gave us knowledge of how to move forward and create a sexual harassment policy. We do not have one and after this session I realise it is important to have a policy in place.”

More than half of those who attended the event said they believe that sexual harassment occurs at their workplace, and that they would be keen to have formal training for their management and staff in workplace sexual harassment issues.

Corinna Lim, AWARE’s Executive Director, said: “I am extremely encouraged by the turnout at the launch and the response to the session. I am glad that HR managers are taking a keen interest in this topic.

“I do think that our workshops are timely and the market is ready for this. Many of the attendees and their colleagues have signed up for the full workshop and we look forward to working with more HR people and organisations to tackle the problem of sexual harassment at the workplace.”

AWARE will run two workshops in June, one on June 17 aimed at HR professionals and other managers (FULLY BOOKED) and the other on 22 June for employees. For more information, call 6779-7137 or visit the special section on sexual harassment on AWARE’s website.

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Many thanks to all who responded to our call to support the White Ribbon campaign, the worldwide effort to end violence against women, by signing our online petition.

By wearing a white ribbon, a man is making a personal pledge to never commit, condone or remain silent about violence against women and girls. Wearing a white ribbon is a way of saying, “Our future has no violence against women.”

On 25 November, which is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon announced a Network of Men Leaders. These men will act as male role models in a campaign opposing violence against women.

Mr Ban urged all men to join the campaign, saying about 70% of women experience some form of physical or sexual violence from men.

Speaking at the UN headquarters in New York, the secretary-general called on men and boys around the world to join the campaign.

“Break the silence,” he said. “When you witness violence against women and girls, do not sit back. Act. Advocate. Unite to change the practices and attitudes that incite, perpetrate and condone this violence.”

He said men must teach each other that real men do not violate or oppress women – and that a woman’s place is not just in the home or in the fields but in schools, offices and boardrooms.

Violence against women takes many forms:

• Physical violence against spouses and girlfriends – from hitting right up to murder
• Sexual violence – usually committed by a boyfriend, husband, trusted adult, or family member
• Emotional abuse — sexual harassment at work or on the street, stalking, jokes that demean women, and controlling behaviour
• In some countries, there is violence in the form of genital mutilation of girls and trafficking of girls and young women into prostitution.

AWARE has organised White Ribbon Campaign activities since 2004.

Find out more about the White Ribbon Campaign: http://www.whiteribbon.ca/

By Jolene Tan

At first blush, the campaign name No To Rape seems odd. Who could disagree?

But reality is odder still. The law itself, the Singapore Penal Code, says “yes” to rape. A man can force a woman to have sex with him, and never be prosecuted or convicted for rape, so long as they are married. (There are limited exceptions – for instance, where the couple is “living apart” and the woman has applied for a protection order – but they do not apply to most marriages.) This is known as marital immunity for rape.

Shockingly, marital immunity extends not only to adult women but also to minor wives. A man penetrating a girl of 14 or 15 without her consent will not be treated as committing rape, so long as he is her husband.
No To Rape calls for marital immunity for rape to be abolished completely, so that all rape complaints face the same processes of investigation, and the same potential for prosecution and conviction, regardless of who the perpetrator might be. More than 2,400 people have signed our petition at NoToRape.com to show their support for this position.

**

Why does marital immunity exist to begin with? This provision was bequeathed to us by the British. Traditionally, in many societies, women were not understood as full people, but partly property. Women were assumed not to have sex for their own purposes. Sexual access to their bodies was decided by their owners – fathers if they were not married, and husbands if they were.

Rape was a crime against “purity”, a quality for which a woman’s body was a vehicle, and from which her body derived value. This value belonged to her father or husband. Rape destroyed this value, and had the character of a property crime against the relevant man. That being so, how could forcing your wife to have sex be rape? The man was simply accessing the value to which he was entitled. The woman’s feelings were irrelevant. Her non-consent was a kind of malfunction, a failure of a thing to serve its proper purpose; maybe regrettable if you were sentimental, but not a matter for law. The husband had “already had her” and was licensed to do so, the wife had long lost her “purity” to him – and it was purity, and not women, that the law protected.

Thanks to the global struggles of women’s rights campaigners, this understanding of rape is now alien and abhorrent to many. We understand rape as a crime because it is an act of violence. It is an invasive appropriation of the victim’s body against her will and contrary to her purposes, to serve the desires and wishes of the rapist. It says that her right to choose what to do with herself does not matter, that she is simply a resource to be used by the rapist. And this is just as heinous whether the rapist is a stranger, an acquaintance, a colleague, a friend, a lover, or a husband.

Prosecuting marital rape is not interference with a private relationship any more than is prosecuting any other form of domestic violence. Rape is not sexual intimacy – it is just a beating carried out with a sexual organ instead of a fist. A marriage certificate should not be a license to commit violence. If you agree, please sign the No To Rape petition today.

The writer, a charity fundraiser with a legal background, is one of the organisers of the No To Rape campaign. AWARE supports the campaign.