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Year: 2011

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SlutWalk Singapore: Happening this December

Organisers aim to take a stand against sexual violence and victim-blaming

2011 has been an exciting year so far, and it looks set to end with yet another ground-breaking event – Singapore’s first SlutWalk.

If all goes according to plan, the local version of this international anti-slut-shaming movement will take place in December.

Workshops on relevant issues are being planned for Dec 3, with the SlutWalk itself slated for Dec 4.

It all began in January, when these words left the lips of Canadian police officer Michael Sanguinetti during a safety forum: “Women should avoid dressing like sluts in order to not be victimized.”

Outraged by the suggestion the way women chose to dress were to blame for the sexual violence inflicted on them, thousands gathered for the first SlutWalk march in Toronto in April.

The movement caught on swiftly, resulting in what some commentators have termed the “summer of slut”. More than 50 SlutWalk marches have since been held around the world, making it one of the most high-profile instances of feminist activism in recent memory.

It was Asia’s first SlutWalk, held in New Delhi in July, that made graphic designer Cher Tan, 24, think that such an event was possible in Singapore.

“I had a vague idea of doing something when I first heard about the SlutWalk,” she tells AWARE. “When I found out that it was happening in India, I thought, why not try to organize a SlutWalk in Singapore too?”

Together with her fellow organisers (there are currently a total of 11, and their ages range from 22 to 30), Tan started the ball rolling by creating a Facebook page and talking to her friends to gauge their interest.

The SlutWalk Singapore team has since crafted a manifesto (see below) and is talking to organisations and potential sponsors who might be interested in collaborating. Besides the actual SlutWalk, they also plan to hold talks and workshops for members of the public to discuss issues like sexual assault and the need for more support services for rape victims.

So, what will SlutWalk Singapore be like? For starters, it probably will not be a walk, says Tan, who has in mind an event closer to the model of a Pink Dot-style gathering.

Unlike SlutWalks in Western countries, where many protestors turned up in skimpy attire to march, there will be a conscious move to de-emphasize the importance of the word ‘slut’ for the event here.

“We want to be as inclusive as possible,” says organiser Vanessa Ho, 23. “The ultimate goal is to create awareness about victim-blaming. If people aren’t comfortable with reclaiming the word ‘slut’, then they don’t have to reclaim it.”

This willingness to shift their focus away from the semantic implications of the word ‘slut’ reflects the organisers’ desire to tailor SlutWalk Singapore to the needs and sensitivities of the local context.

Tan notes that in India, the SlutWalk was re-named the Shameless Front by organisers in a bid to emphasize the message of protesting sexual violence. “This is not about the right to wear skimpy clothes, but rather the right to be without fear,” she says. “That’s why they changed the name – to reclaim the right to feel safe.”

Look out for fringe events throughout the month of November, organised by various groups and individuals in collaboration with SlutWalk Singapore. Details for these events will be rolled out by late September, as will the official SlutWalk Singapore website. Check their Facebook page for updates.

Want to be a part of SlutWalk Singapore? Write to slutwalksg@gmail.com to find out how you can contribute.

The following is an excerpt from SlutWalk Singapore’s manifesto. You can read the full text here:

We are proudly taking a stand against sexual violence and the bully tactics of victim-blaming, as we are tired of being oppressed by slut-shaming; of being judged by our sexuality and feeling unsafe as a result. This is not just a women’s issue nor is it just a men’s issue; it is everyone’s issue – regardless of gender identification, sexual orientation, class, religion, race or any other identity markers.

We seek to:

  • Challenge the sentiment that it is acceptable to live in a victim-blaming society as we do, where we are taught “don’t get raped” instead of “don’t rape”.
  • Emphasize that no means no, yes means yes, and that only our words can consent for us – not our bodies or our clothes, and regardless if we participate in sex for pleasure or for work.
  • Fight the stereotypes and myths of sexual assault (e.g. men jumping out of bushes) and supporting a better understanding of why sexual violence happens (not limited to physical violence), supporting victims and survivors.
  • Create an understanding that sexual assault affects all genders, while acknowledging the fact that it disproportionately affects women.
  • Create a network of safe spaces for victims of sexual assault to seek solace and empowerment.
  • Reclaim the right to express our sexuality without fear by critically examining the value system imposed upon the word ‘slut’. One does not need to identify as a ‘slut’ to be part of SlutWalk.

Am I a slut/ Do I have to be a slut to be part of this?

One does not need to identify as ‘slut’ to be a part of SlutWalk. We are asking you to join us for SlutWalk, to make a unified statement about sexual assault and victims’ rights and to demand respect for all. You do not have to wear your sexuality on your sleeve, we just ask that you come gather with us. We are not asking for you to ‘vamp it up’ either, as that would be falling into the traditional stereotype that we are working hard to break. SlutWalk Singapore is asking you to COME AS YOU ARE – whether in T-shirt and jeans, in fishnets, in a sari, in a jacket, or in a tudung. No matter how you visually identify, we are welcoming ALL those who feel that prevailing attitudes as to why sexual assault happens need to change. We believe in the simple concept that everyone deserves to be respected for who they are. There will also be a series of talks and workshops the day before to contextualize our effort, to spark further discussion and to engage one and all in meaningful dialogue to create awareness about the various issues surrounding sexual assault, sexuality, and consent.

We demand respect.

AWARE CEDAW Forum

Play your part and help shape women’s rights in Singapore for the next five years

Date: September 10, Saturday
Time: 11am to 2pm
Venue: AWARE Centre (Block 5 Dover Crescent #01-22)

You may think that discrimination against women does not exist in Singapore, but it still does, in ways big and small, as shown through AWARE’s Shadow report to the United Nations Committee on CEDAW (Convention On The Elimination Of All Forms Of Discrimination Against Women).

CEDAW is an international Bill of Rights for Women which Singapore ratified 16 years ago. Last July marked the government’s fourth time to the UN to report on its efforts to eliminate discrimination against women.

AWARE will continue to raise awareness on CEDAW and encourage more women and women-oriented groups to engage on this process. The AWARE team has just come back after lobbying at the UN at the 49th session of CEDAW in New York, and we are keen to share with you the process, the outcomes and work with you on a way forward to lobby on certain important issues.

Women in Singapore can play a bigger role using the CEDAW process to support other women in our country, who may not have it easy because of systemic shortfalls.

So please come and listen to new voices on the CEDAW process, join us in the next phase of advocacy and knowledge-sharing and if you are smitten by CEDAW as we are, then own it too. You can also come just for a knowledge top-up as CEDAW is for all women.

Our programme for the day will include a sharing on the process at the UN, a discussion on the Concluding Observations and a facilitated Call to Action on CEDAW.

This is open to all, not just AWARE members, and especially to all those individuals and groups keen to engage on CEDAW. So come along to the AWARE’s CEDAW Forum on Saturday, September 10, 2011.

Click here to register for this event.

For more information, contact Nadzirah at advocacy@aware.org.sg or 6779-7137.

The two messages of SlutWalk

The first is simple: A woman is never responsible for being raped because of what she wears. The second is trickier: Reclaim the word ‘slut’.

By Anu Selva-Thomson

The SlutWalk movement has generated a great deal of controversy over the past few months. As followers of this contemporary feminist campaign prepare for a march in Singapore, it is worth examining the sources of this controversy so as to understand what this movement is all about.

The first SlutWalk was held this April in Toronto, in response to a police officer advising women at a safety forum to (in a nutshell) stop dressing like sluts if they didn’t want to be raped. Since then, women all over the world have been organising similar protest walks in their cities.

The aim of these SlutWalks, as I see it, is to educate people on two primary things.

Firstly – how one chooses to dress has nothing to do with a rapist’s choice to rape. It is preposterous to blame victims or argue that they brought the assault upon themselves. Blaming victims is known as secondary victimization, where the victim is re-victimized by society and/or legal authorities.

The second aim: The word ‘slut’ has been used to dehumanize and objectify women and we need to re-appropriate the word.

I’m fully in favour of the first aim. Rape is a pretty easy word to understand. It means forced and unwanted sexual intercourse. Forced and unwanted are also fairly easy words to understand. When one is forced to do something, it’s generally the case that they do not want to do it and have not agreed to do it – they do it against their will. When something is unwanted, it is unwelcome. Most of us know what these words mean. It is for this reason that I’ve always been confounded by talk about women asking to be raped.

For those of us who need more than the simple definitions, there have been feminists, activists, criminologists, psychoanalysts and social workers who have disputed, debated and discussed the elements of rape in much more detail.

And still, it seems, there are too many people who just don’t get it. The fact is that clothes have very little to do with rape. Rapists don’t hang around void decks or car parks assessing women and their clothing before attacking. They don’t ponder the merits of zippers versus button-fly and wish women would all just wear Velcro.

Rapists rape for a vast variety of reasons. These can include: Hostility towards women; beliefs that support sexual violence; a desire for impersonal sex; a society that supports male dominance and sexual entitlement; environments rife with violence, poverty and a lack of proper law enforcement; and sexual or social inadequacies that result in a need to exert power.

There are many more reasons, none of which include a woman’s choice in clothing. Women in track suits get raped, nuns have been raped, thousands of women in burqas get raped, still thousands more get raped by their husbands or boyfriends – how do we account for provocative clothing as a reason in these cases? We can’t.

There’s a vast difference between telling men and women to practice caution with measures like avoiding dark and lonely places, and telling them that not taking these precautions means they are to blame for getting robbed, stabbed or raped. Correlation does not imply causation.

Arguing that the way women dress causes them to get raped neglects the fundamental fact that human beings have what philosophers call ‘agency’. We make choices. A man who feels sexually aroused by an attractive or ‘provocatively’ dressed woman can choose not to force sex upon her in order to satisfy his arousal. A man who forces sex on another person chooses to do so. Rapists choose to rape.

I shouldn’t have to worry about bringing the trauma of rape upon myself the next time I decide what to wear, in the same way that a man shouldn’t have to worry about bringing the trauma of a battering upon himself the next time he decides to toot his car horn on the highway.

As for the second goal of SlutWalk – that’s a little trickier and I’m not sure I’m convinced. I don’t like the word ‘slut’. I’ve never thought it was a word that had any positive or soul-strengthening connotations. Its etymology dates back to the early 1400s, when it was used to describe someone who was sloppy and dirty. Over time, it became a degrading and demeaning term used to describe women who demonstrate an enjoyment of sex or engage in sex with multiple partners. It’s not a word I would want to reclaim or reconstitute or re-appropriate, because it’s been used as a debasing and negative word.

A woman who enjoys sex, with one or multiple partners, and is comfortable with her sensuality and sexuality shouldn’t have any special word as a descriptor. We don’t have special words that describe a person who generally enjoys food (gourmand or epicure don’t count because they describe persons who have a
particular kind of enjoyment of particular kinds of food) or beautiful scenery, presumably because we think these enjoyments are natural and acceptable.

In the same way, women’s enjoyment of sex and their desire to exist as sensual beings should be perceived as the natural thing it is. My only concern with SlutWalk is that it might be giving weight and attention to a word that, while important as a term that sheds historical and conceptual light on gender and feminist issues, would otherwise be better withdrawn from our contemporary lexicon.

Some proponents of re-appropriating the term ‘slut’ argue that their purpose is to make it meaningless, rather than to remove the word from its patriarchal context and apply it in a positive way. While I do appreciate the intellectual concept behind stripping such words of their meaning, and am aware that the word ‘slut’ was the word used by the police officer whose comments sparked off this movement, I do not agree that raising awareness for an issue as important as secondary victimization should be tied up with highfalutin’ post-structural redefinitions of binaries.

There is certainly a place for discussing the need to tear down Madonna/Whore binaries that have long been used to shackle female sexuality and sensuality. But I’m not convinced that this march is that place. Also, whether reclaiming the word ‘slut’ is the best way to tear down these binaries is another question for another article.

A march like this needs to focus on its primary message – that clothing or dressing has nothing to do with rape. It also needs to make that message accessible to the most number of people. Highly intellectualized discourse that defends the use of the word ‘slut’ is likely to leave too many people confused.

People have also commented on the attire that protestors have chosen to wear in these marches. Many women and men have showed up to SlutWalks wearing little else but their underwear as a statement. While there is nothing inherently wrong with this, it seems that how people are choosing to dress for these walks
is preventing the message from being spread as effectively as it might (more conservative countries are uncomfortable with giving the walk the green-light) and distracting from the essential point concerning secondary victimization.

But activism isn’t perfect. There are bound to be many well-meaning women and men who march for SlutWalk without fully understanding what it means or what responsibilities they have as protesters and as voices in society. Or they may understand it fully but want to highlight one particular aspect over another.

When there are so many people involved in raising awareness, it is inevitable that that we see signs of individual identity and interpretation. What we need to do is make sure we keep our focus on the issue that began all of this – a woman is never responsible for being raped because of what she wears.

The writer is a former teacher who is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in philosophy at the National University of Singapore. She is also the founder and editor of The Mohini Myth website, a platform for sharing views on feminist issues.

Armpits: To censor or not to censor?

This is an account of the talk A Short History Of Modesty In South-east Asia: From The Control Of Women’s Selves To Their Bodies, given by Dr. Farish Ahmad Noor, Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, NTU Singapore. This event was held on August 6, as part of Etiquette 2011, a multidisciplinary showcase of art, writing and film created by and about women.

by Lisa Li & Zarina Muhammad

Sixty people at the Substation are listening to Dr Farish Noor talk about armpits…

A woman dressed in a singlet reaches up for bananas, her armpits exposed to passers-by. Eyes are quickly averted, armpits censored. Onscreen, a message reads: “Do not wear tight and revealing clothes”.

This was part of a series of advertisements screened by Malaysian TV station 8TV during the recent month of Ramadan, urging Malaysians to maintain good standards of public decency. Eventually, a huge public outcry led to the removal of these advertisements.

When did an exposed armpit become the marker for public immodesty? Has this always been the case? If not, what was our ancestors’ understanding of the idea of modesty and morality?

Contrary to the modern-day perception of traditional conservatism, sensibilities in ancient South-east Asia were not necessarily defined by bodies or women. In fact, our ancestors often did not regard the body as ‘dirty’, or as a site to be policed.

Dr Farish Noor cited the example of penis-piercing for the enhancement of sexual pleasure, which was a regular practice up till the 8th century. The positive ideas and attitudes towards sex and sexuality in the ancient Kama Sutra also shaped the worldview of ‘greater India’, that is, present-day South-east Asia.

So, if public immodesty of the classical period was less linked to bodies and sexuality, what then were the markers for public modesty, and how was this influenced by the dominance of Hinduism and Buddhism?

Dr Farish Noor pointed to the two epic Hindu poems – the Ramayana and the Mahabharata – which he described as having given our ancestors the vocabulary to articulate and understand their moral and political landscape.

Of particular interest was the complexity in the representation of female figures in these texts – beautiful, ill-fated Draupadi in the Mahabharata, and strong-willed, loyal Sita in the Ramayana. In certain readings of these two texts, interestingly, the marker of modesty and morality appears to be the demonstration of one’s will in a public space and the woman’s individual actions, rather than her flesh and body.

So just when and how did modesty get transferred from self to the body?

Dr Farish Noor suggested that one factor was the 15th-century arrival of two Abrahamic religions – Islam and Christianity. To mark this change, the body then became the site to write the narrative of a new religion. 14th-century traveller Ibn Battuta described Asian women who went uncovered and free, but with the Islamization of South-east Asia, women started to cover up their bodies in order to outwardly display their conversion and changes in belief system.

The arrival of colonialism was another factor for this shift. With the British, Dutch and Portuguese expanding South-east Asian ports, the towns became predominantly young, single and male, and this was matched by the rise of prostitution of Asian women.

In these cities, racialized colonialism often kept the different races in separate quarters, partly due to the fear of what was then perceived as ethnic-specific diseases. Ironic then, that the different races met in the same brothels, and the prostitute became a vector for disease. Her body literally became the centre of public morality and scrutiny. It is also likely that ‘decent’ women were drawn into this scrutiny of women’s bodies, and strived to look clearly different from prostitutes.

At the same time, it became popular for European men to produce and purchase erotic postcards of nude African women for their private collections. It is unclear why there were no equivalent erotic postcards made of South-east Asian women.

Of course, things are not to be painted in simplistic terms. The notion of the woman’s body as a marker for public modesty continue to be shaped by different identities, representations and interpretations.

In the South-east Asian wars of the 20th century, for example, many women took on the identities of guerilla and freedom-fighter. And running counter to the ulama tradition of Islamic scholarship was Syed Sheikh al-Hady’s 1926 novel, the Hikayat Faridah Hanum – the first modern feminist novel written in vernacular Malay. Up until the 18th century, the Encyclopaedia Of Java was commonly used as a reference for matters related to sexuality and bodies, without any notion of immodesty.

What then do we make of contesting representations of women’s bodies and standards of modesty? And in a global culture that increasingly objectifies women’s bodies, yet polices them with the notion of public modesty, how much control do women have over both the display and the policing of their own bodies? And if our current conception of modesty is indeed a historical construct, is it possible to ‘de-gender’ or ‘de-body’ modesty?

Back to armpits. Should armpits be censored or not? It appears that people haven’t quite decided.

Lisa Li is a teacher and writer. Zarina Muhammad is a curator, writer, art historian, educator and the co-founder of Etiquette. Etiquette’s Visual Art Exhibition will be on at the Substation till August 28.

Dirty, sexy, funny

What the rise of raunchy female-driven comedies says about the changing view of gender roles

By Hong Xinyi

One of the nice things about working at AWARE is the opportunity to meet the many bright young women who take up internships here in order to pursue their interest in gender issues.

It was lunch hour one day in the office when the conversation turned to Sex And The City. “I never liked that show,” said an AWARE intern, a university student.

In addition to the series’ rampant promotion of consumerism as empowerment, she was also irked by how, at one point, the character Carrie Bradshaw (played by Sarah Jessica Parker) had an affair with a married ex-boyfriend. “They tried to make it seem like it was because he was her true love, but if you’re a woman who respects yourself you just wouldn’t put yourself in that situation,” said my colleague, quite firmly.

You don’t have to be a feminist, of course, to dislike this particular pop-culture creation. I’ve met many women who simply cannot stand Carrie’s materialism, whininess, and those godawful puns. And I do understand where they are coming from.

Still, I’ve always liked Carrie. I like how unlikeable she often was. I like that she had bad habits that she didn’t really want to kick, for a while anyway. I like the way her romantic delusions co-existed with a rich lode of sincere cynicism. I like that she loved her friends but wasn’t always good to them, and that the tensions and evolution of these friendships were documented with as much, if not more, care than her romantic relationships. I like that, in an industry where even the best actresses have to wrestle for screen-time, we got to watch Carrie and her friends grow older and wrinklier and fall apart and put themselves together again and again over the course of six TV seasons and 2 movies.

I like that she often screwed up – the way even self-respecting feminists can, from time to time, because life doesn’t always care about your best intentions; the way not many female protagonists are allowed to, because so many of them are still written as one-dimensional characters. As far as I know, Carrie is the only female lead in a mainstream pop-culture franchise in recent memory who has stated – wistfully yet matter-of-factly – that she has had an abortion. Her aforementioned affair may not have been the act of a self-respecting woman, but it was several other things that seem, to me at least, more interesting than the depiction of female moral perfection: well-written, honest and, at times, painfully funny – the anatomy of a bad decision.

Much has been made of how the recent comedy Bridesmaids has surpassed the 2008 Sex And The City movie as the top-grossing R-rated female comedy of all time. Comedian and co-screenwriter Kristen Wiig stars as down-on-her-luck baker Annie, who has to organize pre-wedding festivities for her recently-engaged best friend. Madcap mayhem ensues, including a scene featuring the female cast vomiting and having diarrhea while dressed in expensive bridal gowns; several one-night-stands gone woefully, hilariously wrong; and lots and lots of potty-mouthed punchlines.

Many film critics have in fact taken Bridesmaids’ crudeness as evidence of its feminist stripes, in marked contrast to the critical drubbing heaped on the more conventionally ‘girly’ 2010 Sex And The City 2. Slate describes Bridesmaids as “a giddy feminist manifesto that responds to the perennially circulated head-scratcher ‘Can women really be funny?’ with a whoopee-cushion fart”. The New York Times thinks the movie proves that “women can go aggressive laugh to aggressive-and-absurd laugh with men”.

Taken with a recent spate of raunchy comedic female roles that includes Cameron Diaz as an unrepentant gold-digger in Bad Teacher and Jennifer Aniston as a sex-crazed dentist in Horrible Bosses, Bridesmaids’ gross-out style seems emblematic of a generational shift in tone for female-driven comedy.

After all, what could be further away from the arch, cutesy tone and preening consumerism of Sex And The City than Bridesmaids’ deliberate toilet humour and off-kilter comedic rhythms?

So – silly movies about shoes and shopping are out and silly movies about women behaving as badly as men are supposed to are in? Why is one supposed to be better than the other? Why is this considered progress?

In her 2006 book Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women & The Rise Of Raunch Culture, American journalist Ariel Levy described the phenomenon of women practicing what she considered to be reverse-sexism:

“We decided long ago that the Male Chauvinist Pig was an unenlightened rube, but the Female Chauvinist Pig has risen to a kind of exalted status. She is post-feminist. She is funny. She gets it. She doesn’t mind cartoonish stereotypes of female sexuality, and she doesn’t mind a cartoonishly macho response to them…Raunch provides a special opportunity for a woman who wants to prove her mettle. It’s in fashion, and it is something that has traditionally appealed exclusively to men and actively offended women, so producing it or participating in it is a way both to flaunt your coolness and to mark yourself as different, tougher; looser; funnier – a new sort of loophole woman who is ‘not like other women’, who is instead ‘like a man’. Or, more precisely, like a Female Chauvinist Pig.”

There are ways in which this thesis can be applied to the glee that has greeted the brand of raunchy female humour currently in vogue. In one sense, yes, it’s great that it is now acceptable – and, crucially, profitable – for women to behave in certain outrageous ways on-screen. But the fact remains that in many glowing reviews, this behavior – crudeness, aggression – is still automatically coded as ‘masculine’ and therefore worthy of emulation. Would a male-driven comedy with characters behaving in stereotypically ‘feminine’ ways be given similar approbation?

More importantly, this focus on raunch is an over-simplification of what is happening to female-driven comedy today.

Levy was writing at a time when Britney Spears hadn’t yet shaved her head and Paris Hilton was one of the biggest celebrities on the scene. There’s been a shift in pop culture since then. For one thing, today’s It girls are of a distinctly different breed. From sullen Kristen Stewart to sarcastic Emma Stone, there are few up-and-comers who fit the conventional sexpot mold.

For another, female comedians like Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and Bridesmaids’ Wiig have become some of the most beloved and sought-after performers in their industry. It is not coincidental to their success that these funny ladies, like most comedians, write and produce their own material, and raunch is just one of the many different tools they use to craft their characters.

The commercial success and cultural resonance of Bridesmaids’ bawdy women may in fact be due not just to their outrageous comedy (which is, don’t get me wrong, very very funny), but to the fact that these characters are written as exaggerations but not stereotypes. Unlike their counterparts in the cookie-cutter romantic comedies of recent years, these caricatures may be broad, but they are not banal.

Which is to say, really, that Bridesmaids is more like Sex And The City than you might expect. Raunchy is just one of the many things these women are allowed to be. They can be materialistic and whiny, yes; and sometimes confused, selfish, and competitive; and also loyal, perceptive and brave. They are not perfect, because they are not idealized – they contain multitudes. We all do.

There is a brief but pensive little scene in Bridesmaids that I remember more fondly than the vomit-diarrhea one, during which Annie – who lost all her savings when her bakery went under during the recession – makes a single cupcake. She mixes the batter, fills the mold, watches the oven and then pipes on petals of frosting – the sequence is an elegant, efficient way of expressing the inner world of this character, of showing us her particular form of creativity, her ambition, and her sadness at losing her way. Showing a woman doing something that she cares about, that she’s good at, in a compelling way that furthers the story – how often do you see that in a movie? She also reacts to the news that her best friend is getting married with a clichéd blend of Martha Stewart-style decorum and Oprah Winfrey-level enthusiasm in her voice, even as her eyes grow wide with… what is that look? Panic? Loss? Envy? How often do you see this cocktail of emotions in a female-driven comedy structured around a wedding?

You will probably not be surprised to learn that I like Annie. I don’t like her as much as Carrie – but then, I haven’t had a chance to really get to know her yet. I hear that Bridemaids 2 is almost certainly happening though.

The writer is a freelance journalist and a communications consultant for AWARE.

Forum on the Presidential Elections

Date: August 20, 2011, Saturday

Time: 3.30pm to 5.00pm

Venue: 9 Penang Road, #13-15 Park Mall (map)

MARUAH (Working Group for an ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism, Singapore) has put together this public forum to continue our key role in increasing public awareness of Singapore’s election processes and our country’s constitutional matters.

We strongly believe that information is crucial to acting and voting responsibly. The Presidential Elections and the mandate it confers on the Elected President has to be clearly discussed so that the Singaporeans can make informed choices.

Our speakers, constitutional expert Dr Kevin Tan and activist blogger Alex Au, have been asked to share with us their insights and knowledge on the mandate of the Elected President and how we can make decisions that is the best for Singapore.

This Forum has also been timed to take place in advance of the Presidential polling date and we hope that through this Forum, Singaporeans will be made aware of their rights as citizens and their responsibilities as voters.

To register, please visit this link.

About the speakers

Alex Au Waipang is a well-known web commentator, writing on Yawning Bread. His cutting and insightful analysis on society and politics has not only earned him a loyal following, but the attention of opinion of policy makers from time to time. In activism, he is primarily known for his work in equal rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered persons but has also spoken out for civil liberties, abolition of the death penalty, fair treatment for migrant workers, and human rights in general. Au has contributed chapters to several books that look at politics and governance in Singapore, most recently a chapter on political parties’ performance in the general election of 2011 in Voting in Change (Ethos Books).

Kevin YL Tan has been teaching constitutional law for the past 25 years. A graduate of the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore and of Yale Law School, he has written and edited over 25 books on law, history and politics. He is currently Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore and Adjunct Professor at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University.

Visit the Maruah Singapore website for more information.

Our take on UN’s Concluding Observations

There remain many areas where gender equality can be improved in Singapore.

AWARE is very heartened by the Concluding Observations made by the United Nations’ (UN) Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. But we remain concerned about the Singapore government’s level of commitment to gender equality.

AWARE urges the State to meet its obligations on some of the key areas of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), as highlighted in the UN’s Concluding Observations, which contains the UN CEDAW Committee’s principal areas of concern and its recommendations of measures the State should take to ensure the non-discrimination of women in the country.

These areas are:

  • To localise CEDAW in the community; to ensure that Parliament is aware of its own Obligations to CEDAW principles; and to incorporate CEDAW into the local legal system
  • To elevate the status of the national machinery and support it with adequate resources
  • To remove reservations, especially to Article 11(1), Article 2 and 16, within a clear timeline
  • To harmonise the local laws with those of the Convention and to include the legal fraternity and non-governmental organisations in the consultations
  • To define discrimination and equality in accordance with CEDAW principles and so remove all forms of discrimination against women in Singapore, including sexual minority groups and female migrant workers and foreign wives
  • To put in place a comprehensive strategy to modify or eliminate patriarchal attitudes and stereotypes that discriminate against women, including those from sexual minority groups; and to eliminate cultural concepts, such as “the head of the household”, that negatively impact the equality of men and women
  • To ratify the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons; and to regularly train police officers and the judiciary on these matters, as well as on the issue of violence against women.
  • To take effective measures to eliminate occupational segregation between men and women at the workplace
  • To ensure that all women, regardless of marital status, are given the same maternity benefits
  • To offer legislative protection to foreign domestic workers, including a regular day off
  • To enact a law to deal with workplace sexual harassment; and to increase public education on this issue
  • To establish a national human rights institution
  • To ratify the Optional Protocol, which allows the UN CEDAW Committee to receive complaints from individuals or groups

AWARE notes that the UN CEDAW Committee also reiterated six Observations that were first put forward to the State four years ago. While AWARE appreciates some of the changes made by the State to improve the status of women in Singapore, many of the core areas of CEDAW have been left untouched.

This lapse has been noted by the UN CEDAW Committee, particularly in key areas such as: a clear timeline for the removal of reservations; sensitization to and temporary special measures for disadvantaged women; elevating the status of the national machinery; and incorporating a definition of discrimination into legislation. These are core equality principles.

AWARE also notes that at the 49th Session, the government of Singapore appeared more receptive and open to the UN CEDAW Committee, while also being non-committal in its answers in these core areas.

AWARE hopes that the State, which takes its international treaties obligations seriously, will work on some of the key Observations as outlined by the UN CEDAW Committee. We hope to see improvements in the core areas as outlined in the Concluding Observations.

We would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate the UN CEDAW Committee on their role at the Reporting Session in New York, where AWARE was represented.

AWARE will always be ready to help the State in any way possible to ensure that these Concluding Observations can be made into a reality.

Joint statement on CEDAW from 4 S’pore NGOs

AWARE, the Humanitarian Organization for Migration Economics (H.O.M.E.), Sayoni and the Singapore Council of Women’s Organisations (SCWO) express concerns at the UN review of Singapore’s gender equality

From left: Vanessa Ho from Sayoni, IWRAW intern Karry, Malathi Das from SCWO, Braema Mathi from AWARE, Jean Chong from Sayoni, Nadzirah Samsudin from AWARE, Kelly Then from Sayoni, and Laura Hwang from SCWO. Photograph by Dana Lam from AWARE.

Gender equality experts from the United Nations’ CEDAW Committee asked more than 100 questions during an intense, five-hour Constructive Dialogue with Singapore’s State delegates at the 49th CEDAW session on July 22, 2011, in the New York headquarters of the UN.

The Convention On The Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) is an international human rights treaty which Singapore signed in 1995. State signatories are obliged by a comprehensive bill of rights to guarantee women’s equality and freedom from discrimination in public and private life, as well as to report periodically on their progress.

Singapore’s civil society was represented at the session by four organisations who had submitted reports and made representations to the Committee:

Notably, this is the first time that HOME and Sayoni participated.

Minister of State for Community Development, Youth and Sports, Madam Halimah Yacob, delivered a comprehensive statement on Singapore’s progress with gender equality and the State’s decision to partially ratify two Articles (2 and 16) of the Convention. She affirmed the State’s “full commitment to the promotion and protection of human rights, in particular the rights of women”.

Civil society representatives are pleased that the CEDAW Committee recognised critical impediments to gender equality in Singapore and raised their concerns with the State in a Constructive Dialogue, as well as in the Concluding Observations. While some organisations are disappointed with the State’s stock responses, all believe that the State is committed to fulfilling its treaty obligations and welcome future progress.

Statements from each organisation follow:

AWARE

AWARE is encouraged the State has removed blanket reservations to Article 16 and Article 2 of the convention. We also commend the State’s repeated declaration of its full commitment to gender equality and its commitment to working towards the ratification of the UN Protocol on Trafficking.

But we remain concerned about the State’s reticence on its obligations to institutionalise CEDAW across the board including in Parliament, the judiciary and law enforcement agencies, schools and the media. AWARE is also troubled that the State’s avowed approach to meritocracy and Equal Opportunity is unconcerned with the other core CEDAW principles for Substantive Equality which are: Equal Access and Equal Outcomes.

Several members of the CEDAW Committee have also asked for national mechanisms such as a Human Rights Institution or Anti-discrimination law. AWARE is deeply concerned with the systemic discrimination of marginalised women in Singapore namely the sexual minority, the “foreign wife” and “foreign domestic workers” and, women with disabilities in the absence of a clear anti-discrimination mechanism.

In this respect, we urge all relevant Ministries, especially MCYS, to include in public policy consultations all Civil Society actors in addition to the three apex bodies. We also urge the State to make the Office of Women’s Development (OWD) independent of the Family Division at the MCYS and to set aside a dedicated budget for mainstreaming CEDAW through committed public education, improved data collection and temporary special measures.

Visit www.aware.org.sg for more information. For enquiries, please contact Nadzirah Samsudin at 6779-7137 or nadzirah@aware.org.sg and Halijah Mohd at halijah@halijahmohd.com.sg

H.O.M.E.

H.O.M.E. raised concern that migrant women domestic workers in Singapore do not enjoy equality before the law and in practice. They are excluded from the Employment Act and are not entitled to a mandatory rest day like other workers and are subject to mandatory deportation on grounds of pregnancy and HIV infection.

H.O.M.E. urges the State be fully committed to the implementation of international labour standards for migrant women domestic workers under the ILO Convention Decent Work for Domestic Workers. In view of the increasing numbers of victims of trafficking in the region, HOME is hopeful that the State will not further delay the ratification of the Palermo Protocol and would enact an Anti-Human Trafficking law to provide comprehensive Victim Protection Assistance and an Inter- Agency monitoring and evaluation body which provides for multi-sectoral representation including NGO partners.

Visit www.home.org.sg for more information. For enquiries, please contact bridgett.home@gmail.com

SAYONI

Sayoni was heartened that the Committee’s experts studied information from diverse sources and recognised the wide range of direct and indirect discrimination that women face as sexual minorities (e.g. lesbian, transgender). In this regard, the Committee raised questions with the State about:

  • Awareness of direct and indirect discrimination
  • Inclusion in interpretation of non-discrimination
  • Anti-discrimination law
  • De-criminalisation of homosexuality
  • Media censorship
  • Access for women in same-sex partnerships to public health and family planning services
  • Provision in family law and domestic violence
  • Shared property and inheritance rights
  • Encouragement to participate in political and public life
  • Consultation in policy-making
  • Added vulnerability to sexual harassment at the workplace
  • Grievance mechanisms

The State’s response since 2007 that there is no deliberate discrimination and its evasion of specific questions reflects weak knowledge and understanding of how discrimination is different and worse for sexual minority women. However, this creates a valuable opportunity for new perspectives. To this end, Sayoni invites constructive dialogue with the State, the media and the public.

Visit www.sayoni.com for more information. For enquiries, please contact kelly@sayoni.com and jean@sayoni.com

SCWO

SCWO was pleased to note that progress has been made on many fronts, including the elevation of the Women’s Desk to the Office for Women’s Development, which we see as being better resourced and focused to advance our nation’s progress to Equal Voice, Equal Space and Equal Worth for women.

In our reporting to the CEDAW Committee, SCWO highlighted the areas where we would like to see greater progress.

With our generally ageing population, and the longer life-expectancy of women, Singapore is facing the feminisation of ageing. We must therefore put in place measures to improve the protection of older women from social and economic marginalisation, including addressing gender disparity in retirement incomes by looking at the cause and effect of existing income disparity in the workforce.

90 per cent of women over 60 years of age have less than Secondary 4 education, and 80 per cent will be widowed by the age of 80. Improved healthcare for women at different stages of life, health infrastructure for women with disability, and skills upgrading and training with targeted interventions for disadvantaged groups, will enable these women to keep pace with the information age and maintain their health, independence and functionality. Education for reintegration of women who have left the workforce must also be a priority.

SCWO recommended the acceleration of the promotion of female parliamentarians to ministerial appointments and to enable more gender diversity in high level positions in government, boards of public organisations and public companies.

For details of the SCWO CEDAW Oral Submission, Executive Summary & Shadow Report & photo-editorial, please visit www.scwo.org.sg. For enquiries, please contact Selina Gan at 6837-0611 or selina@scwo.org.sg

UN assesses S’pore’s compliance with CEDAW

The United Nations’ CEDAW Committee has considered the 4th periodic report of the Singapore government and issued the following comments.

POSITIVE ASPECTS

The Committee welcomes the progress achieved since the consideration of the State party’s 3rd periodic report in 2007, including the legislative reforms that have been undertaken and the adoption of a range of legislative measures. Specific reference is made to:

  • Amendments to the Employment Act (2009) and adoption of a new employment agency regulatory framework (2011)
  • Amendments to the Penal Code (2008), introducing provisions to protect young persons against sexual exploitation for commercial sex
  • Amendments to the Administration of Muslim Act to raise the minimum marriage age from 16 to 18 years old for Muslim females
  • Amendments to Evidence Act and Criminal Procedure Code (2010)
  • Amendments to Women’s Charter (2011)
  • Amendments to the Children and Young Persons Act which protects girls and young women against abuse, neglect and exploitation (2011)

The Committee notes with appreciation the initiatives taken by the State party to promote gender equality and protect women’s rights, such as the creation of the National Family Violence Networking System, an Inter-Agency Taskforce on Trafficking in Persons, and introduction of enhanced package measures to support parenthood, including longer maternity leave and extended childcare and infant leaves for both parents.

The Committee notes with satisfaction the ratification by the State party of the Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (2007). The Committee also welcomes the State party’s partial withdrawal of its reservation to articles 2 and 16 of the Convention (2011).

PRINCIPAL AREAS OF CONCERN & RECOMMENDATIONS

The Committee recalls the obligation of the State party to systematically and continuously implement all the provisions of the Convention and views the concerns and recommendations identified in the present concluding observations as requiring the priority attention of the State party between now and the submission of the next periodic report.

Consequently, the Committee urges the State party to focus on those areas in its implementation activities and to report on actions taken and results achieved in its next periodic report. The Committee calls upon the State party to submit the present concluding observations to all relevant ministries, to the Parliament, and to the judiciary, so as to ensure their full implementation.

Parliament
While reaffirming that the Government has the primary responsibility and is particularly accountable for the full implementation of the obligations of the State party under the Convention, the Committee stresses that the Convention is binding on all branches of Government, and it invites the State party to encourage the Parliament, in line with its procedures, where appropriate, to take the necessary steps with regard to the implementation of the present concluding observations and the Government’s next reporting process under the Convention.

Legal status of the Convention
The Committee acknowledges the State party’s commitment to the principles of gender equality and non-discrimination embodied in CEDAW Convention. However, the Committee remains concerned that despite the ratification of the Convention in 1995, the State party has not yet domesticated it as part of national legislation.

The Committee calls on the State party to place high priority on the process of full incorporation of the Convention into its domestic legal system in order to give central importance to the Convention as the basis for the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women.

Definition of equality and non-discrimination
While noting that the general principles of equality and non-discrimination are guaranteed in article 12 of the Constitution, the Committee remains concerned at the absence of a specific definition of discrimination against women in accordance with article 1 of the Convention in the State party’s legislation, including the Women’s Charter.

The Committee reiterates its previous recommendation and urges the State party to incorporate in its Constitution and other appropriate legislation a definition of discrimination against women, encompassing both direct and indirect discrimination, in line with article 1 of the Convention, and also to include provisions to prohibit all forms of discrimination against women on all grounds.

Reservations
The Committee notes the State party’s partial withdrawal of its reservations to articles 2 and 16, as well as the progress made in order to align its legislation with the Convention.

The Committee is, however, concerned at the State party’s reservations to article 2, paragraphs (a) to (f), and article 16, paragraphs 1(a), 1(c), 1(h), article 16, paragraph 2, and article 11, paragraph 1, as it is of the opinion that these reservations are impermissible since these articles are fundamental to the implementation of all the other provisions of the Convention.

In this respect, the Committee takes note of the information provided in the State party’s reply to the list of issues and during the dialogue with the Committee that the Government is considering reviewing its position with regard to its reservations to the Convention.

The Committee calls upon the State party to fully incorporate parts of articles 2 and 16 that are now applicable in the State party and urges the State party to consider withdrawing remaining reservations to article 2 and 16, and article 11(1), which are contrary to the object and purpose of the Convention, within a concrete timeframe.

Discriminatory laws
The Committee notes with appreciation the efforts of the State party through the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (MUIS) to review and revise discriminatory legislation and align Syariah law with civil law, in particular, the amendments to the Administration of Muslim Law Act in 2008, raising the minimum age of Muslim marriage for both parties from 16 to 18 years old, the fatwa on joint tenancy and fatwa on Central Provident Fund nominations, updated in 2010.

It remains deeply concerned, however, at the preservation of dual marriage regime that applies in the State party and the discriminatory provisions that persist in the laws relating to marriage, divorce and nationality that deny women equal rights with men. It is also concerned at the lack of free choice of adjudication between Syariah Court and family court.

The Committee calls upon the State party to:
(a) Pursue without delay its law review process with the view to harmonizing its domestic legislation with its obligations under the Convention within a clear time frame;
(b) Enhance its law reform through partnership and collaboration with male and female religious leaders, lawyers and civil society organizations including women’s non-governmental organizations; and
(c) Provide for equal choice of adjudication between Syariah and family courts.

National machinery for the advancement of women
While noting the re-designation of the Women’s Desk as the Office for Women’s Development on July 1, 2011, the Committee is concerned about its limited authority, human and financial resources and its capacity to ensure that gender equality policies are properly developed and fully implemented throughout the work of all ministries and government offices.

The Committee reiterates its previous recommendation, and encourages the State party to elevate the status of the national machinery for the advancement of women, to strengthen its mandate and provide the necessary human, financial and technical resources.

Temporary special measures
The Committee notes with concern that the State party has no plans to adopt temporary special measures to accelerate the achievement of substantive equality between women and men in all areas of the Convention, especially in areas where women are underrepresented or disadvantaged.

The Committee reiterates its previous recommendation and calls upon the State party to:
(a) Sensitize all relevant officials on the concept of temporary special measures contained in article 4, paragraph 1, of the Convention, as interpreted in the Committee’s general recommendation No.25; and
(b) Consider applying temporary special measures in various forms in areas in which women are underrepresented or disadvantaged and allocate additional resources where needed to accelerate the advancement of women.

Stereotypes and harmful practices
The Committee reiterates its concern about the persistence of patriarchal attitudes and deep-rooted stereotypes regarding the roles and responsibilities of women and men within the family and society at large.

In this regard, the Committee is particularly concerned that, despite the legal equality accorded to spouses, discriminatory traditional cultural attitudes that continue to utilize “the head of the household” concept, assigning this role to men, persist in the State party.

Additionally, the Committee is concerned at the pervasiveness of advertising for products and services to improve body image and conform to societal expectations, as well as at the lack of clear guidelines to non-medical practitioners, such as aesthetic clinics, beauty clinics and spas. It notes that such cultural overemphasis of women’s beauty and lack of effective regulations on its commercial exploitation, including by the media, reinforces the image of women as sex objects and constitute serious obstacles to women’s enjoyment of their human rights and the fulfilment of the rights enshrined in the Convention.

The Committee further notes that despite the fact that the State party recognizes the principle of equality of all persons before the law, as enshrined in the Constitution, regardless of gender, sexual orientation and gender identity, there is still negative stereotyping of women belonging to this group.

The Committee calls upon the State party to:
(a) Put in place, without delay, a comprehensive strategy to modify or eliminate patriarchal attitudes and stereotypes that discriminate women, including those based on sexual orientation and gender identity, in conformity with the provisions of the Convention. Such measures should include efforts, in collaboration with civil society,
to educate and raise awareness of this subject, targeting women and men at all levels of the society;
(b) Engage in pervasive, sustained and proactive efforts to combat and eliminate stereotypes discriminatory cultural concepts, including “the head of the household” that negatively impact the achievement of equality between women and men;
(c) Impose stricter regulations with regard to safety and to extend the existing guidelines for medical practitioners to non-medical practitioners such as aesthetic clinics, beauty salons and spas, and conduct regular monitoring of their activities;
(d) Use innovative measures that target media people to strengthen understanding of the equality of women and men and through the educational system to enhance a positive and non-stereotypical portrayal of women; and
(e) Monitor and review the measures taken in order to assess their impact and to take appropriate action.

Violence against women
The Committee expresses its concern at the persistence of violence against women in the State party, in particular, domestic and sexual violence, which remains, in many cases, under-reported. While welcoming the amendments to the Penal Code in 2008 on the criminalization of rape of a spouse, the Committee is concerned that it only applies when the perpetrator and the victims are living apart and are in process of termination of their marriage, and if the victim applied for a personal protection order.

The Committee urges the State party to:
(a) Review its Penal Code and Criminal Procedure Code in order to specifically criminalize domestic violence and marital rape, and ensure that the definition of rape covers any non-consensual sexual act;
(b) Provide mandatory training for judges, prosecutors and the police on the strict application of legal provisions dealing with violence against women and train police officers on procedures to deal with women victims of violence;
(c) Encourage women to report incidents of domestic and sexual violence, by de- stigmatizing victims and raising awareness about the criminal nature of such acts;
(d) Provide adequate assistance and protection to women victims of violence, by strengthening the capacity of shelters and crisis centres, and enhancing cooperation with NGOs providing shelter and rehabilitation to victims; and
(e) Collect statistical data on domestic and sexual violence disaggregated by sex, age, nationality and relationship between the victim and perpetrator.

Trafficking
While welcoming the establishment in March 2011 of an inter-agency Taskforce on Trafficking in Persons, and the adoption of the definition of “trafficking in persons” as defined in the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, supplementing the United Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, the Committee remains concerned at the continuing prevalence of trafficking in women and girls in the country about the alleged criminalization and deportation of trafficked women and girls as immigration offenders, as well as low reporting rate. The Committee is also concerned at the lack of a comprehensive legal framework to combat against trafficking and provide protection for victims.

The Committee calls upon the State party to:
(a) Ratify the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime;
(b) Enact a specialized legislation against trafficking in persons including the internationally recognized definition of human trafficking in order to better identify victims of trafficking and prosecute traffickers;
(c) Strengthen its measures to combat all forms of trafficking in women and children, including through increased international, regional and bilateral cooperation with countries of origin and transit, in line with article 6 of the Convention, as well as through trainings to the judiciary, law enforcement officials, border guards, social workers in the country; and
(d) Ensure the prosecution and punishment of individuals involved in trafficking and the protection and rehabilitation of victims of trafficking.

Participation in political and public life
While welcoming the increase in the number of women in the public service, the Committee notes with concern that there are no full women ministers in the cabinet and women in the State party continue to be under-represented in decision-making in the government, the judiciary, the diplomatic service, as well as in the private sectors.

The Committee recommends that the State party:
(a) Adopt laws and policies aimed at the promotion of women’s full and equal participation in decision-making in all areas of public, political and professional life, in accordance with article 7 of the Convention, and adopt temporary special measures in accordance with article 4, paragraph 1, of the Convention and the Committee’s general recommendations No.23 (1997) and No.25 (2004) concerning women in political and public life and temporary special measures;
(b) Take steps to ensure that the elected women representatives to public office are provided with needed institutional support and resources; and
(c) Conduct awareness-raising activities for the society at large about the importance of gender equality and women’s participation in decision-making; to develop training and mentoring programmes for women candidates and women elected to public office as well as programmes on leadership and negotiation skills for current and future women leaders.

Employment
The Committee reiterates its concern about the State party’s reservation to article 11, paragraph 1, of the Convention and remains concerned at the continuing vertical and horizontal occupational segregation, the persistent wage gap between women and men, and the lack of a legal definition and prohibition of sexual harassment. The Committee expresses its concern that the paid maternity leave of 16 weeks applies only to citizen births, and that single unwed mothers do not get the same benefits as married women. The Committee is deeply concerned at the cases where pregnant female employees were forced to resign.

The Committee urges the State party to:
(a) Withdraw its reservation to article 11, paragraph 1, and to adopt effective measures to eliminate occupational segregation, both horizontal and vertical;
(b) Ensure that all women employees, both in public and private sector are guaranteed with a paid maternity leave, regardless of the nationality and marital status;
(c) Adopt legislation guaranteeing equal pay work of for equal value to narrow and close the wage gap between women and men in accordance with ILO Convention No. 100 (1951) concerning Equal Remuneration; and
(d) Take steps to enact legislative provisions on sexual harassment at the workplace, as well as in educational institutions, including sanctions, civil remedies and compensation for victims.

Foreign domestic workers/foreign wives
While recognizing the comprehensive set of legislative, administrative and educational measures adopted by the State party to protect foreign domestic workers, and the adoption of the new employment agency regulatory framework under the Employment Agencies Act in April 2011 to raise the standard of recruitment processes and minimise abuses and malpractices, the Committee remains concerned at the situation of foreign domestic workers, in particular, with regard to the mandatory regular testing for pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, the prohibition to marry Singaporeans and the lack of mandatory day off. The Committee also reiterates its previous concern about the situation of foreign wives of Singaporean citizens, especially with regard to their right to work and to their permanent residence status in the country.

The Committee encourages the State party to:
(a) Review and amend the existing labour legislation in order to apply to foreign domestic workers, or adopt new legislation ensuring that foreign domestic workers are entitled to adequate wages, decent working conditions, including a day off, benefits, and access to complaint and redress mechanisms;
(b) Review and repeal the law requiring a work permit holder, including foreign domestic workers, to be deported on grounds of pregnancy or a diagnosis of sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV/Aids;
(c) Provide work permit to foreign wives with a social visit pass and review its system of granting citizenship to foreign wives within a clear and reasonable time frame after marriage; and
(d) Ratify the ILO Conventions No.111 (concerning Discrimination in Respect of Employment and Occupation), and sign and ratify the ILO Convention No.189 (concerning Decent Work for Domestic Workers).

Marriage and family relations
The Committee is concerned that, despite some of the steps taken by the State party to harmonize Syariah law and civil law, Muslim women still cannot enjoy equal rights with men with regard to family, marriage and divorce, including with respect to their rights to marry which depends on permission by a woman’s Wali, and the possibility of Talaq divorce. While acknowledging the legal reforms made by the State party that make polygamy practically almost impossible, which resulted in a decline of the number of polygamous marriages, the Committee is concerned at the continued legal authorization of polygamy. The Committee is also concerned that women’s equal share in all marital property is not guaranteed in clear legislation. The Committee is further concerned at the lack of legal provisions governing de facto unions, which may deny women protection and redress in case of separation or violence against women.

The Committee calls upon the State party to:
(a) Ensure equality between women and men in marriage and family relations, amend without delay all remaining discriminatory provisions and administrative regulations, including provisions and regulations relating to family, marriage and divorce and take all necessary legislative measures to ensure women’s equal share in all marital property regardless of monetary and non-monetary contributions to the marital property;
(b) Legislate without delay, complete ban of polygamy to all societal groups; and
(c) Review its current legal system governing marriage and family relations with a view to extending existing legal provisions to couples living in de facto unions.

National human rights institutions
The Committee regrets that the State party has not yet taken steps to establish an independent national human rights institution with a wide mandate to protect and promote women’s human rights, in accordance with the Principles relating to the status of national institutions for the promotion and protection of human rights (Paris Principles).

The Committee recommends that the State party establish, within clear time frame, an independent national human rights institution in accordance with the Paris Principles, whose competencies should include issues related to the equality of women and men.

Optional Protocol
The Committee encourages the State party to accelerate its efforts to ratify the Optional Protocol.

Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action
The Committee urges the State party, in the implementation of its obligations under the Convention, to fully utilize the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, which reinforce the provisions of the Convention, and requests the State party to include information thereon in its next periodic report.

Millennium Development Goals
The Committee emphasizes that full and effective implementation of the Convention is indispensable for achieving the Millennium Development Goals. It calls for the integration of a gender perspective and an explicit reflection of the provisions of the Convention in all efforts aimed at the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals and requests the State party to include information thereon in its next periodic report.

Dissemination
The Committee requests the wide dissemination in Singapore of the present concluding observations in order to make the people, government officials, politicians, parliamentarians and women’s and human rights organizations, aware of the steps that have been taken to ensure the de jure and de facto equality of women, as well as the further steps that are required in this regard.

The Committee recommends that the dissemination should include the local community level. The State party is encouraged to organize a series of meetings to discuss progress achieved in the implementation of these observations. The Committee requests the State party to continue to disseminate widely, in particular to women’s and human rights organizations, the Committee’s general recommendations, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the outcome of the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly on the theme “Women 2000: gender equality, development and peace for the twenty-first century”.

Ratification of other treaties
The Committee notes that the adherence of the State party to the two major international human rights instruments would enhance the enjoyment by women of their human rights and fundamental freedoms in all aspects of life.

The Committee therefore encourages the State party to consider ratifying the treaties to which it is not yet a party, i.e. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families; the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance; and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and the International Convention for the Protection of All
Persons from Enforced Disappearance.

Follow-up to concluding observations
The Committee requests the state party to provide, within two years, written information on the steps undertaken to implement the recommendations contained in paragraphs 14 and 32 above.

Preparation of next report
The Committee requests the State party to ensure the wide participation of all ministries and public bodies in the preparation of its next report, as well as to consult a variety of women’s and human rights organizations during that phase.

The Committee requests the State party to respond to concerns expressed in present concluding observations in its next periodic report under article 18 of the Convention. The Committee invites the State party to submit its next periodic report in July 2015.