Year: 2011

We’ve had a very busy year here at AWARE. Catch up on what we have accomplished, and join us for more initiatives in 2012.

We launched the Sexual Assault Befrienders Service(SABS)

In November, AWARE launched the first support service for survivors of sexual assault in Singapore after a 6-month pilot period. We decided to introduce SABS after receiving several Helpline calls from women who had suffered from sexual assault years ago, and were still unable to get closure as they did not receive the support they needed at the time.

SABS comprises a dedicated Helpline, counselling, legal counselling and Befriending services.

The SABS Helpline 6779 0282 runs on weekdays from 10am to 9.30 pm. Sexual assault survivors can also email us at sabs@aware.org.sg for assistance.

Our response time for SABS is shorter as the needs of these women are more urgent, and we also follow up on their cases more closely. SABS clients get to see our legal counsellor within three days (depending on urgency) instead of waiting 2 weeks for our regular Legal Clinic. We can send a SABS Befriender down to the police station almost immediately, if necessary.

Our website also offers the most comprehensive information available on rape and sexual assault in Singapore.

We contributed to the proposed repeal of Section 157(d) of the Evidence Act

At AWARE’s SABS launch, Law Minister K Shanmugam announced the intended repeal of Section 157(d) of the Evidence Act, an archaic law that makes it possible to discredit an alleged sexual assault victim through her sexual history.

Many people contributed to this development. AWARE is proud to have participated in this process by helping to highlight Section 157(d) and discussing its disturbing implications with Minister Shanmugam. Read our detailed submission on this section of the Evidence Act here.

We reached out to more women in need of help

In 2011, a record number of women sought out our Helpline, Counselling and Legal Clinic services.

Compared to 2010, the number of calls received on our Helpline has increased by 6%, while our Counselling cases increased by 47% and Legal Clinic cases increased by 14%.

To meet this greater demand, we are looking for more female lawyers to volunteer for our Legal Clinic, as well as volunteers keen to join our SABS team.

We have also successfully completed the training for our very first batch of Mandarin-speaking Helpline volunteers, who will be able to assist Mandarin-speaking callers.

Want to volunteer with AWARE? Signing up is easy: click here to get started.

Here are some thoughts from an AWARE volunteer who has been a Helpliner for two years:

“It’s great to see more and more regular Helpliners at AWARE. What worries me is the high proportion of non-Singaporean Helpliners in comparison to their overall population in Singapore. Don’t get me wrong. I am actually very grateful to all the non-Singaporeans for helping out. What I cannot understand is why the Singaporeans are not being able to volunteer as much. Is it because Singaporeans are too busy with their own lives? Why are ‘foreigners’ more keen to help? Is it the because of the different ways we were brought up?

I like to listen to and talk with people and help them address their issues. I wasn’t familiar with what AWARE did and I didn’t know if I would be able to help those in need by volunteering here. Another organisation suggested that I could volunteer as an AWARE Helpliner. And I am happy I followed the advice.

It amazes me how people can open up very readily over the phone. I understand that the anonymity makes them comfortable. There are days when after my Helpline session, I feel quite blessed to be able to help people. Of course, there are also some days when I wish I could really help the callers more than I was able to.”

We lobbied for women’s rights at the United Nations in New York

We believe that the United Nations’ Convention On The Elimination Of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), which is ratified by the Singapore government, is an important mechanism that helps keep women’s issues on the national agenda.

As part of our efforts to use this human rights framework to work towards gender equality in Singapore, we submitted our third CEDAW Shadow Report to the United Nations this year. Making the trip to the UN headquarters in New York were: AWARE CEDAW Sub-Committee chair Braema Mathi, AWARE Vice-President Halijah Mohamad, AWARE immediate past president Dana Lam and AWARE research executive Nadzirah Samsudin.

Shadow Reports are submitted by NGOs so that the UN can get a more comprehensive understanding of the lives of women in each country before making their recommendations to the governments of these countries.

Find out more about our Shadow Report, our lobbying efforts and how CEDAW works here.

We recommended mandatory paternity leave

We commissioned a survey of 1,001 working parents, conducted by students from Ngee Ann Polytechnic’s School of Business & Accountancy.

When asked whether they thought paternity leave should be made compulsory, 91% of the respondents said yes. Of these, 93% explained that paternity leave would allow fathers to be more involved in parenting.

A significant number of the parents – 57% – said they would welcome having the option of transferring parenting leave from mother to father.

These survey results back up our policy recommendations with regards to paternity leave, which include:

• Make paid paternity leave of two weeks mandatory, with the cost shared between the employer and the state.
• Convert one of the four months of maternity leave into ‘parental leave’ to be taken by either parent, with the state sharing the cost with the employer when the father takes this leave.
• Offer a ‘parenting present’ of $4,000 to couples where the father takes the one month of parental leave.
• Convert the currently mandated 6 days of paid childcare leave into dependent’s leave, with ‘dependents’ including older children and parents.

Read more about our recommendations here.

We submitted feedback about the Singapore Budget

For the first time, AWARE submitted a position paper to policy-makers about the allocation of funds and policy priorities reflected in the Singapore Budget.

We believe that women’s issues are important national issues, and that it is important to bring women’s perspectives to policy-making.

Some of our recommendations include:

• Investing in more and better centres to care for infants, children and youths.
• Extending the same motherhood and childcare benefits to unwed mothers.
• Increasing the subsidies for women and men who care for dependent relatives (i.e. physically disabled or mentally ill children and siblings; elderly parents or grandparents), and peg the eligibility criteria to the prevailing median income.
• Transparency on the Medifund criteria and a breakdown by sex and age of its impact on women.
• A greater effort made to retain women in the workforce, via the elimination of discrimination, mentoring schemes and training programmes.
• Eliminate discrimination against women at the workplace, including any form of sexual
  harassment. Put in place programmes that motivate and support capable women to aspire to and reach management and leadership positions.

Read our submission in full here.

We re-launched our financial education course

Our Financial Awareness & Confidence Training (FACT) workshops have been re-structured to make it more useful for women looking to gain crucial skills and knowledge to take charge of their future.

FACT classes are now offered in three parts, dealing with personal finance, insurance and investment respectively.

In 2012, we will be marketing FACT more widely to reach out to more women. Want to be a part of these efforts? Find out more here.

We invented the AWARE Awards and the Alamak! Awards

To drum up more attention for gender equality in Singapore, we launched the very first AWARE Awards, to celebrate women and men who have broken through gender barriers and helped to nurture a culture of gender equality in Singapore.

Just for fun, we also created the Alamak! Awards, which highlights instances of sexism in Singapore.

The winners of the AWARE Awards and the Alamak! Awards were announced at our Big Ball fundraising dinner this year. Find out more about the winners here.

We are now accepting nominations for the 2012 AWARE Awards and Alamak! Awards. Do your part for gender equality and submit your nominations here!

We raised a record amount of money for our initiatives

Thanks to the support of organisations like the Chen Su Lan Trust, the Margaret Mary Wearne Charitable Trust, the Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple, the Lee Foundation and the Chew How Teck Foundation, our fund-raising efforts this year went extremely well, with about $800,000 raised to fund our various initiatives, including the Sexual Assault Befrienders Service and the increased outreach of our Support Services.

We’d also like to thank the AWARE members, volunteers and supporters who generously donated their time, expertise and/or money to our various fundraising initiatives, including the inaugural Big Ball gala. We couldn’t have done it without you!

We got hits

Readership figures for our website and the number of people joining our Facebook page grew significantly this year. As we continue working towards our goal of making the AWARE website the best source of news about feminism in Singapore, we will be bringing you more self-generated content.

This year, for instance, we commissioned articles from contributors like blogger Alex Au, feminist writers Lisa Li and Anu Selva-Thomson and academic Mohamed Imran Mohamed Taib, as well as our small but dedicated army of awesome interns, who brought you articles like this and this.

Besides the website, you can keep in touch with AWARE via our Facebook page. Also, anyone – not just AWARE members – who wants to keep abreast of the latest news about women’s issues both in Singapore and abroad can sign up for our new and improved Daily News Update email service, where we deliver the most topical and interesting articles about gender issues straight to your inbox every weekday.

If you want to write for AWARE, please write to media@aware.org.sg to tell us what issues you are interested in.

157. The credit of a witness may be impeached in the following ways by the adverse party or, with the consent of the court, by the party who calls him:

…(d) when a man is prosecuted for rape or an attempt to ravish, it may be shown that the prosecutrix was of generally immoral character.

The announcement by the Law Minister that they would move to repeal Section 157(d) of the Evidence Act was the result of many small efforts.

It started with Aloysius Chang. He probably doesn’t even know he had anything to do with the repeal. But in February 2010, he wrote an article for the Singapore Law Review’s newsletter Jurris Illuminae which mentioned the problematic section:

It is submitted that this statutory provision seems to adopt a very strange line of reasoning: that a woman’s past sexual history or reputation would deem her to be immoral, and thus there is reason to believe that she somehow consented to the alleged act. This notion of “immorality” seems archaic by modern times, and there is no way of ascertaining any objective standard of what “immoral” means.

In September of that year, Rachel Lim, an AWARE intern, came across Chang’s article while researching rape crisis procedures around the world. Her report became a key reference for AWARE’s initiative to create a sexual assault support service.

After Section 157(d) was brought to our attention, AWARE shared details about the offensive section on our social media platforms. But the matter largely remained dormant until the SlutWalk movement encouraged interest in the prevalence of victim-blaming.

This in turn prompted Lisa Li, a writer for the newly formed Public House website, to write an article highlighting the issues faced by victims of sexual assault in Singapore. She interviewed AWARE executive director Corinna Lim, who encouraged her to look at Section 157(d).

After the article was published, Andrew Loh, the founder and editor of Public House, sent it to relevant ministries, asking them if they would like to publish a reply.

There was no response except for one: The Ministry of Law.

But the Ministry of Law didn’t want to reply. They wanted to meet. Loh declined, saying that Public House was not the expert on this subject. He encouraged the Ministry to talk to AWARE instead, as we were doing the ground work on this issue.

AWARE got the call. Would we be willing to meet with the Law Minister? Yes. AWARE President Nicole Tan and executive director Corinna Lim met Mr K Shanmugam at his office. During the meeting, the Minister was responsive and supportive. He concurred with the view that the law was archaic. He offered to help move toward its repeal.

The outcome of the meeting was officially announced on November 25 at the launch of AWARE’s Sexual Assault Befriender Service.

Each person involved in this chain of events had no idea that their individual efforts would result in the imminent repeal of this law. But they did it anyway. Individual efforts matter. And they can add up to great things.

The following is the speech given by Minister for Foreign Affairs and Law, Mr K Shanmugam, at the official launch of AWARE’s Sexual Assault Befrienders Service.

Ms Nicole Tan, President of AWARE,

Ms Corinna Lim, Executive Director of AWARE,

Members of AWARE,

Ladies and gentlemen,

The 25th of November is a significant date for activists working to protect the safety, welfare and rights of women around the world, not just Singapore.

It is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

Today also marks AWARE’s 26th anniversary.

AWARE’s Sexual Assault Befrienders Service

I am glad that AWARE is officially launching its Sexual Assault Befrienders Service today.

AWARE’s Service will provide a very useful avenue for sexual assault victims to receive help and counsel.

The Befrienders will also assist them in getting medical attention and in reporting such cases to the police.

I, quite frankly, have not been aware of the issues relating to this field. I first became aware of them when I read an article by Andrew Loh. It talked about the process that the woman has to go through to file a report in rape cases. And quite frankly, I was a little taken aback and surprised at the process and procedures. So, in the meantime, civic group, No To Rape, mass emailed a number of MPs and Ministers and again, I decided to meet them to understand the issues better. I talked to them and AWARE. I have to say these gave me a much better understanding, as a result of which I offered to put AWARE in touch with the Police on the processes.

I do not think there is a government-society or government-women divide in these things. I think it is really a question of understanding, trying to make sure that the processes work for everyone, and having really an equality of understanding and knowledge. I think we are all on the same side on these issues. It cannot be on different sides. And I think the police have agreed to meet with AWARE. My colleagues and I will be quite happy to assist in the process as it goes along. I can understand the Police’s perspective – they have a framework to work with, and there are limitations to what they can do. But I think within that framework, I am sure they will try and help.

I am happy to support the Sexual Assault Befrienders Service by AWARE, which is part of AWARE’s long-running efforts to eliminate violence against Women in Singapore, including:

a) the launch of the AWARE helpline in 1991;

b) the commencement of regular dialogues on sexual assault cases with the Singapore Police Force in 1993, and

c) the White Ribbon Campaign in 2004 to end violence against women.

History of Section 157(d), Evidence Act

The Ministry of Law (MinLaw) regularly conducts reviews of our laws to ensure that they remain relevant and progressive. For example, in 2009 to 2010, we conducted a fairly extensive feedback process to amend the Criminal Procedure Code, and we consulted lawyers, practitioners, people from the Bar, people from the Criminal Bar and the academia. We put all of them together in the same room, and worked it out over a period of nine to 10 months. The final result did not necessarily take into account every feedback we received, but it can honestly be described as a work that most people signed off on, and accepted as one that fitted within the framework that we have. That has always been my approach at MinLaw, and the public consultation for the Evidence Act has taken the same approach. We have seriously consulted, with the view that any feedback that is direct and relevant, we will look into it seriously, and where we can implement it, we will do so.

During the consultation exercise, AWARE made a submission to repeal section 157(d) of the Evidence Act.

Section 157(d) provides that “when a man is prosecuted for rape…, it may be shown that the prosecutrix was of generally immoral character” in order to impeach the credibility of an alleged rape victim.

There is a history to this section. Singapore’s Evidence Act is based on the Indian Evidence Act of 1872, which in turn was based on the English common law of that time.

The term “generally immoral character” in Section 157(d) was assumed to be a proxy for sexual promiscuity.

Underlying Section 157(d) was an assumption – old common law.

These assumptions are:-

a) a woman who is sexually experienced is less credible as a witness; and

b) a woman who is sexually experienced is more likely to have consented to sexual activity.

In like vein, Sir William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England, written in 1753, stated that the testimony of a rape victim of “evil fame” was presumed to be false or feigned.

One has got to only state these propositions to see how antediluvian and repugnant they are. The Canadian Supreme Court has called them the twin myths.

Proposed Repeal of Section 157(d)

I thank AWARE for raising it. And I really do not think that these assumptions, myths and repugnant views should find any expression in our laws.

As part of the upcoming round of amendments to the Evidence Act, MinLaw intends to repeal Section 157(d) of the Evidence Act. It is certainly my view that this section should not exist. The approach we should take to this, whether it is a man or a woman – matters relating sexual history, just like a man who has been previously accused, whether that should or should not be taken into account – sexual history of either party can only be taken into account if it is relevant for that particular case. So, we really ought to leave it to the courts. Neither should we say it is completely irrelevant. It really depends on the facts, and it cannot just be the woman. That must be the right approach.

Like all other evidence, matters relating to a victim’s sexual history must satisfy the threshold of relevance before they can be introduced, rather than as dictated by Section 157(d).

Conclusion

Let me conclude by commending AWARE and its volunteers for setting up the Sexual Assault Befrienders Service, and wish it every success in fulfilling its mission.

Thank you.

Read the speech here.

On November 25, AWARE officially launched the Sexual Assault Befrienders Service (SABS) after a 6-month pilot period. The following is the speech given by AWARE Executive Director Corinna Lim at the launch event.

Our Guest of Honour, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Law, Mr Shanmugam, members of the press, friends of AWARE:

Good morning everyone.

Mr Shanmugam, thank you for supporting the launch of the Sexual Assault Befrienders Service today. We know you have a very busy schedule and we are really glad that the Government is taking the issue of sexual assault seriously. It is a much overlooked area which requires some attention.

Being sexually assaulted is a terrifying experience for a woman whatever her level of sexual experience. The aftermath can be almost as traumatic, if one has to go through this alone.

I would like to quote the experience of a woman who has given us permission to share her story. She was a tourist outside Singapore when the incident happened . She came to see us for advice on how she could seek justice . We put her in touch with lawyers in the country where it happened and this started a chain of events which eventually led to the capture of a serial rapist:

“What I found most challenging after the assault, was the fact that exactly when you are most impacted and impaired by the incident, you have to go through further invasions which involve making crucial and far-reaching decisions. You have to get medical treatment for the injuries, address the risk of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, decide if you want to report the incident to the police and, if you wish to proceed with police action, you have to get the DNA samples from your private parts. And ideally, all of this should happen as soon as possible and no later than 72 hours after the incident.”

Women have called the AWARE helpline 5 years, 10 years and even 16 years, after they were sexual assaulted, to talk about what happened. Time did not heal their wounds. They were still suffering from panic attacks, flashblacks and nightmares. And some were depressed. Sometimes their partners or boyfriends, desperate to find a solution, called us for help.

These Helpline cases indicated to us that many victims did not have the support they needed after the assault to find closure and to move on.

It is these very cold calls – in rape vocabulary, anything beyond the first 72 hours is considered cold – that prompted us to create the Sexual Assault Befriender Service – a specialized, comprehensive support service for sexual assault survivors.

In May this year, we launched the Sexual Assault Befriender Service or SABS (for short).

What is SABS?

SABS comprises a dedicated Helpline, counselling, legal counselling and Befriending services.

These are all services that we offer for other types of cases. However, the SABS Helpline runs from 10 am to 9.30 pm, longer hours than our regular Helpline which operates from 3 pm to 930 pm.

SABS clients get to see our legal counsellor within three days (depending on the urgency) instead of waiting 2 weeks for our Legal Clinic.

We can send a SABS Befriender down to the police station almost immediately, if necessary.

Also, we follow up with the client a lot more actively, keeping in touch with them to see how they are doing and following up on their police case.

SABS Pilot

To carry out the SABS pilot, we equipped 7 Befrienders and 4 counsellors with specialized information and skills to provide support for sexual assault victims. These were people who had already gone through Helpline training or were professional counsellors. So, they had a basic background in providing emotional support.

We also set up a new section of resources on our website, where we offer the most comprehensive information available on rape in Singapore.

The objectives of the pilot were:

• To assess the demand for such a service
• To assess what we might need to roll out the service fully
• To develop our experience working with sexual assault victims, supporting them through the medico-legal processes
• To find out what issues might arise in providing this service.

We did not publicise this service in the media. We announced it on our website and to our database.

The results of the pilot told us there is a real need for SABS.

Demand
During the six-month pilot, we received 24 calls about sexual abuse cases i.e. rape, molest, extortion. This is roughly double the number of sexual abuse calls that we usually receive on our regular Helpline over a six-month period.

Of the 24 calls received, 14 were rape cases.

We met with 10 of the 24 callers and provided them with counselling, befriending and/or legal counselling services.

So, yes, there was a demand in terms of numbers.

More importantly, there was a demand in terms of the amount of help needed for each case. The demand on our team was much more intense than what is required in supporting non-SABS cases.

Some clients came in twice a week to see our counsellor.

Legal counselling usually took 1.5 hours instead of 30 minutes. Befriending would typically take 3 – 5 hours per visit.

So, it is a lot of hours of support for one person. But if this is what it takes to help a sexual assault survivor to heal and recover rather than to go through years or a lifetime of self-blame, fear, anxiety, self-abuse and depression, it is more than worth it.

What we need to roll out

A new counselling room, given the number of contact hours. We will be renovating our back room for this purpose.

An additional social worker to manage this service.

A dedicated SABS number.

More volunteers to be trained as Befrienders.

Outreach and publicity, mainly through working with partners. We hope to partner with the Police and hospitals in particular, to reach out to “hot” cases (cases in the first 72 hours).

We need to get the word out in the media, the Internet, to other VWOs and to the public in general that there is now a specialized service for this.

We need money to fund all this. We would like to thank the Margaret Mary Wearnes Charitable Trust and the Chen Su Lan Trust for ensuring that we have funding to provide this service for a year. But of course, we need more money for longer sustainability.

Issues

I would like to talk briefly about three things:

Date rape

Most rape is acquaintance rape, and more often than not it is date rape. To give you an idea – of the 34 rape calls that we received on our Helpline over the past two years, where information about the relationship between the perpetrator and the victim was made available to us, there was only 1 case in which the woman was raped by a stranger. In all the other cases, the rapists were people the victims knew.

Date rape is especially confusing for the victim as there is some level of consent to the situation and there is often an issue of evidence.

Even though the victim did not consent to the sexual penetration, she may have consented to meeting the accused at a late hour alone, to drinking and often to a certain degree of intimacy with the perpetrator, short of sexual intercourse. Although she is clear that she did not consent to sex, she feels partly responsible for the situation.

In date rape cases, we will provide the victim with information as to how the law defines rape and consent. We will support her to deal with feelings of guilt and shame, and sometimes, the adverse judgments of her family and friends.

Our role as Helpliners, Befrienders and Counsellors in the case of a date rape is to be empathetic and supportive.

We say “It’s not your fault” and we work from there.

As a Befriender, I have seen with my own eyes the difference these words “It’s not your fault” make to a sexual assault survivor. They can be life-saving.

Police procedures

The Police are generally the first point of contact for sexual assault victims. In Singapore, a rape victim will have to
make a police report before she can get a Rape Kit done at the hospital. A Rape Kit is the collection of DNA samples for forensic testing.

When the victim first goes to the Police station, she is usually in a state of trauma and confusion. The Police thus have an extremely challenging role as they have to take a report on highly sensitive and personal matters from victims when they are at their most distressed.

A negative experience at this critical stage may re-traumatize the victim and/or deter the victim from proceeding with the report or the prosecution.

This is where the Befriender can be of enormous help to the victim and the Police. Based on our experience of working with sexual assault victims, we believe that our Befrienders’ support of the victims will assist the Police in carrying out their investigative roles more effectively while, at the same time, ensure that the victim receives the emotional support that she needs during this time.

The Police have to be impartial fact finders. They cannot be the people to tell the victim “It’s not your fault”. But the victim is at a stage where she really needs to be believed and supported, and our Befriender can play this role.

The Minister has kindly facilitated a meeting between AWARE and the Police to discuss this next month and we sincerely hope that we will be able to work out an arrangement with the Police whereby we can be there to support the victims from the time they make the police report.

The low rate of reporting

Of the 24 calls that came in during the SABS pilot period, only 6 victims had made police reports.

This is not surprising. It stems from a few factors. In the case of date rape, victims are not sure if a crime has taken place, are afraid of not being believed, feel that they have no evidence or are too ashamed to bring it up.

Victims may also be fearful of victim-blaming – factors such as how they dressed and behaved and their past sexual history may be used against them.

When we started to research rape laws and procedures, we came across Section 157(d) of the Evidence Act, which allows a woman’s past ‘immoral’ history to be used against her. The law had in fact codified victim blaming.

We approached the Minister about this and I am happy to say that he will be announcing some good news about this issue a little later.

We are most heartened by how open and responsive the Government has been to our feedback in this area. We look forward to a closer engagement between civil society and the government.

I will end with another quote from the same survivor that I quoted before:

She says:

“ I did not have the knowledge, experience, or -after what had happened- the self-assurance to proceed but the fact that I did, with the emotional and professional support of AWARE, is the very reason that today I can face life at eye level again. ……Considering the shame, humiliation and helplessness that the victims often experience, I think it is important to look at SABS not as a charitable service but as a necessary institution that can make all the difference when it matters most.”

So, this is the start of a long process. AWARE celebrates its 26th birthday today. We have with us our past presidents, Constance Singam and Dana Lam, and founding member, Margaret Thomas, to share this special day. We are also joined by some members of the SABS team and many other committed volunteers who have contributed their talents and time to AWARE.

We hope to be around for another 26 years, and then some. For the immediate future, our aim is to make sure that survivors of sexual assault know that they can turn to SABS for immediate help and support, and do not have to struggle alone with their pain for months or years.m