MENU

MENU

Donate Now
Login

Year: 2021

home

Don’t let pornography become your child’s default sex educator

This op-ed was originally published in The Straits Times on September 3 2021.

Some of us treat sex and sexuality as shameful and taboo. Others are extremely comfortable talking about their sexuality. How do we come to have these beliefs and attitudes? What determines our relative openness and comfort with conversations about sexuality?

It’s hard to pinpoint any one determining factor, but experts believe that our attitudes towards sex are shaped at an early age by parents, peer groups, teachers, media and social media… and pornography. Yes, pornography.

As anyone who has spent time with teenagers, or been a teenager, can attest, most teens are naturally curious about sexuality. They may seek out (or accidentally stumble across) pornography to satisfy that curiosity. But what happens when adolescents watch porn without the tools to make sense of what they are seeing?

And is banning access to pornography the best way to protect children from its harmful effects? The Children’s Commissioner for England, Dame Rachel de Souza, earlier this week urged pornographic websites and social media companies to do more to stop children’s access to explicit materials. But while her recommendations, which centre on strengthening age verifications for such platforms, would surely help, many believe that such regulations can only go so far in enabling children to resist porn’s pernicious influence.

In Singapore, nine in 10 boys between the ages of 13 and 15 years have watched or read sexually explicit materials, according to a 2016 survey by Touch Cyber Wellness. Some surveyed children were exposed to pornography even before they started primary school.

While the proliferation of free streaming porn sites has made explicit content easier than ever to accidentally stumble upon, the survey showed that 54 per cent of boys intentionally sought it out.

Negative effects

Unlike more balanced and measured introductions to human sexuality, exposure to pornography (accidental or not) provides adolescents a distorted view of sex. Studies show that most mass-market pornography conveys the beliefs that sex is divorced from intimacy, for example, and that women are always ready for sex.

A longitudinal study among American adolescents also found that increased use of pornography predicted more sexist attitudes two years later.

Pornography also shapes models of behaviour and introduces new sexual expectations. It has been linked to sexually violent behaviour later in life: In another US study, people who watched violent pornography were more than six times as likely to engage in sexually aggressive behaviour.

A 2019 study found that 13 per cent of sexually active girls aged 14 to 17 have been choked by their partners; experts believe this to be linked to increased exposure in boys to violent porn, which normalises certain dangerous behaviours as “expected”. For young women, the pornography use of their male partners can also feed into their own body shame, and make them susceptible to coercion in sexual acts.

Regulating pornography

Parents at a virtual dialogue hosted this year by the Ministry of Education expressed concern about the easy accessibility of pornography online and suggested that more can be done to regulate such content.

The Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) maintains a symbolic ban on a list of 100 websites, most of which are pornographic in nature.

The ban is considered “symbolic” as it is intended to communicate the Government’s disapproval of pornography and to prevent young children from accidentally accessing these sites, not to comprehensively ban all pornographic websites available in Singapore. Of course, the proliferation of virtual private networks (VPN) has meant that any such ban, symbolic or not, is easy to sidestep.

Meanwhile, age verification measures are often beset with technical and regulatory challenges. Chief among them is the near impossibility of reliably verifying the age of the user. A Guardian report showed that fake profiles could circumvent these blocks within minutes.

Many parents we meet through Birds & Bees – an Association of Women for Action and Research (Aware) programme designed to help parents initiate and sustain conversations with their children about sex, consent and respect – have told us about the range of filters and parental controls they use to completely block their children’s access to pornography.

Yet there are two hitches to this approach: First, according to a UK study, more 16- and 17-year-olds had seen pornography on social media platforms than on pornographic websites. These often escape parental controls because parents do not expect their children to find pornography on these platforms.

Second, parents often deploy these measures without any conversations with their children, or attempts to provide them with context. It’s natural to want to protect children from the deleterious effects of pornography by ensuring their access to pornography is regulated. However, is it realistic for us to rely on artificial barriers to porn as our main strategy? Even the most obsessively vigilant parents are hard pressed to monitor every single piece of media that their child consumes throughout childhood and adolescence.

More importantly, taking such a top-down approach to parenting does not make for the healthiest or most trusting relationships.

Instead, a number of sex educators and public health experts are recommending a new educational tool to push back on the negative effects of pornography exposure: porn literacy.

What is porn literacy?

Essentially, porn literacy aims to equip adolescents with critical thinking skills, so that when they do see pornography, they know how to unpack it. Instead of burying children’s heads in the sand, it teaches them to understand porn for what it is: profit-driven content that is potentially misogynistic at best, downright violent and exploitative at worst.

A study analysing one of the most comprehensive porn literacy programmes (titled The Truth About Pornography: A Pornography-Literacy Curriculum For High School Students Designed To Reduce Sexual And Dating Violence) found that students were less likely to see pornography as lucrative, realistic or a good way to learn about sex after taking the class. They also had a better understanding of the legality of underage individuals sending nude selfies.

Ideally, porn literacy in schools should be supplemented with parents talking to their children about pornography. These conversations can mitigate the harms of porn: A study found that pornography was associated with an increased probability of condomless sex only when parents engaged in little to no sexual health communication with their children.

Parents may be concerned that talking to adolescents about pornography will encourage their children to seek it out, but there’s no evidence to support this fear. On the other hand, a stand-alone conversation about pornography may not be of much help either – parents need to build on a foundation of regular, age-appropriate conversations about bodies, healthy boundaries and relationships.

A 2020 survey by Blackbox and Aware of 564 parents found that only half of the respondents were comfortable talking to their children about sexuality education. Thirty-five per cent of parents who were uncomfortable said they lacked the appropriate tools to begin conversations about sex and sexuality.

Unfortunately, unless parents can secure these tools (for example, via programmes like Birds & Bees) and schools can introduce porn literacy as part of their sex education curriculum, sexually explicit content produced for profit and entertainment will have “the Talk” with their children instead.

Shailey Hingorani, Head of Research and Advocacy, AWARE

Online misogyny manifests in resentment around National Service and misconceptions around gender-based violence, and sees high engagement: Quilt.AI and AWARE study

This post was originally published as a press release on 2 September 2021.

A new study has filled in details in the picture of online misogyny in Singapore.

From April to August 2021, gender equality organisation AWARE and technology firm Quilt.AI conducted a collaborative research project using a proprietary machine-learning model to analyse publicly available online data. Researchers employed this model to study online discourse around gender-based violence, as well as opposition narratives to gender equality. The study focused on Singapore-based online activity, and charted how the above were impacted by COVID-19.

“We were excited to partner with the innovative team at Quilt.AI on this overdue look at online harms in the local context,” said Shailey Hingorani, AWARE’s Head of Research and Advocacy. “Our findings can inform interventions to address the scourge of misogyny as it gains ground in society, and make the online experiences of women and girls safer.”

Discourse on Gender-Based Violence

Quilt.AI’s machine-learning model was used to examine the online discourse around gender-based violence (GBV) in Singapore, as well as its volume, platforms and main proponents. The research team studied 700 public posts across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit and HardwareZone; as well as 1,620 comments on YouTube relating to GBV. From here, three main categories of “myths” (i.e. fallacies used to defend and justify GBV) were observed: confusion around consent (40%), diminishing or dismissing GBV (35%) and other forms of victim-blaming (25%). The model did also pick up on posts that featured outrage at and critique of these myths, as well as frustration towards institutions for not having better prevention and response systems for sexual violence.

The research team also studied 819,190 unique searches (between March 2019 and March 2021) of keywords relating to gender-based violence in Singapore. Searches relating to rape, sexual assault and consent all increased in the past year. On the other hand, searches about physical violence (specifically, intimate partner violence) and relevant help-seeking peaked around Singapore’s first COVID-19 circuit-breaker period (March-May 2020).

Opposition Narratives to Gender Equality

Researchers also identified five opposition narratives to gender equality from a sample of 500 posts on Twitter, Facebook and HardwareZone, using two parameters—frequency of posts and degrading misogynistic language aimed at women and girls—to classify each narrative as “extreme”, “moderate” or “weak”. The most prominent opposition narrative was found to be resentment over National Service (NS): Men bring up mandatory NS as a rebuttal in myriad conversations about inequalities and oppressions faced by women. Other prominent narratives centred on misconceptions around the aims of feminism, with men stating that the movement calls for “female dominance” as opposed to equality, and identifying perceived hypocrisy tied to imagined expectations of “gentlemanly” behaviour such as paying for dates.

High Engagement Rates

Lastly, the model found that female accounts on Twitter received twice as many misogynistic comments as a random sample of accounts. In terms of engagement, misogynistic comments were twice as likely to be “liked” and 4.5 times more likely to be retweeted when compared to non-misogynistic comments.

“These findings confirm what we have long suspected that women were experiencing online in Singapore, based on anecdotal evidence from AWARE’s clients and community,” said Ms Hingorani. “The speed at which misogynistic ideas proliferate online—when generated and promoted by anonymous users with little accountability for the harm they cause—should deeply concern anyone with an interest in gender equality. We hope that tech companies, the government and civil society can work harder to stamp out online misogyny through greater education, initiatives to encourage bystander intervention, and a duty of care to moderate user-generated data and images.”

“As a mission based technology firm, gender and climate are our two areas of focus,” said Anurag Banerjee, CEO of Quilt.AI. “A large part of the gender work done by us focuses on fighting misogyny online. We are glad to have been able to have supported AWARE’s efforts.”

Read the full report, “A study of online misogyny in Singapore”, here.

About AWARE

AWARE is Singapore’s leading women’s rights and gender-equality advocacy group. It works to identify and eliminate gender-based barriers through research, advocacy, education, training and support services. AWARE embraces diversity, respects the individual and the choices she makes in life, and supports her when needed. aware.org.sg

About Quilt.AI

Quilt.AI is a consumer research and behavior change company based in Singapore and the USA. It works with more than 100 organisations globally on increasing awareness and knowledge of human behavior on the Internet. Quilt.AI has been rated by the Economist as an “AI for Good” company as it focuses on using technology to address inequalities in gender and climate globally. quilt.ai

Better support migrant domestic workers providing care

Caregiving for someone with dementia is a huge undertaking, particularly when one is not adequately equipped to do so. M.E’s challenges in caring for the author’s mother are definitely not unique (Putting mum in a nursing home will be the last resort, Aug 16).

Many families in Singapore hire migrant domestic workers (MDWs) to help care for their elderly relatives. However, a joint study by AWARE and HOME in 2020 found that not all MDWs hired for caregiving receive relevant training beforehand. Existing training programmes are also not standardised.

Without proper training, MDWs are ill-equipped to manage the high care needs of care recipients with dementia. They also have to adapt to their care recipients’ evolving care needs and increasing dependency as the latter’s condition deteriorates. For those who lack the skill to manage the physical and mental strain of caregiving, this is extremely challenging.

At the same time, many MDWs refrain from voicing their concerns for fear of jeopardising their employment. Ultimately, MDWs’ fatigue and inability to cope can compromise their provision of care.

More needs to be done to better prepare and support MDWs in taking on caregiving responsibilities.

Establishing an accreditation system to certify MDWs’ skills can ensure greater standardisation of caregiving training. A standardised care matrix should be used to assess the skill levels of MDWs intending to take on caregiving jobs.

Dementia-specific caregiving training should be made mandatory for MDWs prior to deployment. This would improve the matching process between employers and MDWs by aligning the latter’s skills and the care recipients’ needs. Also, employers intending to hire an MDW for caregiving should be required to declare if the care recipients have dementia and/or behavioural issues.

Our research also found that respite care services are under-utilised, primarily due their high cost. This translates into over-dependance on MDWs to provide round-the-clock care, leaving them overworked and often unable to take rest days. Our eldercare infrastructure should include a national respite care programme to guarantee access to MDW caregivers, and all who need it. Care services should be publicly provided to keep costs affordable.

In 2018, around 82,000 persons above 60 were suffering from dementia in Singapore. This figure is projected to reach 152,000 by 2030. We need to develop more sustainable long-term care plans that do not overly rely on MDWs, and are supportive of all caregivers.

Jaya Anil Kumar, Research and Advocacy Manager at the Humanitarian Organization for Migration Economics (HOME)

Kimberly Wong, Research Executive, AWARE

We harp on false sexual assault accusations despite evidence to the contrary

This op-ed was originally published in Channel NewsAsia on August 19 2021. 

SINGAPORE: The spectre of false sexual abuse accusations looms large in cultural narratives about sexual violence, with public anxiety about the ease and frequency of false reporting remaining high.

Although the evidence on false allegations has repeatedly failed to support that fear, many continue to rue that #MeToo’s political dictum of “believe women” has gone too far.

Case in point: When a Singapore anaesthetist was acquitted of molesting a 32-year-old woman, after she admitted at trial that she was lying, commentators took to banging the drum, claiming that false allegations are widespread and that all sexual assault complaints – or gender equality movements, even – should be treated with scepticism.

“Women can be vile creatures too,” a Twitter user tweeted at AWARE after news of the above case broke. “That is why I have never supported women’s rights.”

A comment on Facebook reads: “Singapore is a country whereby women have much higher status than men and can always play victim to garner sympathy.”

A LOT OF US THINK MANY SEXUAL HARASSMENTS CLAIMS ARE FALSE

In an Ipsos survey of 1,019 Singaporeans and PRs in 2019, four in 10 agreed with the statement that false accusations of sexual harassment are becoming more common in Singapore. Forty-one per cent of all Singaporeans agreed or strongly agreed that false accusations of sexual harassment are a bigger problem in our society than unreported acts of sexual harassment.

Lest you write this off this as the conservative beliefs of an older population, the survey found that this perspective is more prevalent among younger and middle-aged Singaporeans, aged 18 to 49 years.

On the other hand, under-reporting of sexual abuse remains pervasive. Seven out of 10 clients of AWARE’s Sexual Assault Care Centre (SACC) do not file an official report.

Studies in the US have found that anywhere between 6 per cent and 38 per cent of men admit to sexually coercive behaviour. Yet it is rare to see proportionate uproar about the number of perpetrators who get away with sexual abuse.

Of course, “believe women” has never meant “believe all women categorically, no questions asked”. But the knee-jerk dismissal with which women’s stories have historically met needs to be put to bed.

So what should we make of the burgeoning conviction surrounding false accusations? How do we answer those who would cite this recent case as evidence of a more widespread conspiracy?

FALSE ACCUSATIONS ARE EXCEEDINGLY RARE

Research for the United Kingdom’s Home Office in 2005 – believed to be the most comprehensive study of its kind to date – suggests only 4 per cent of cases of sexual violence reported to the UK police are found or suspected to be false. (Of the 216 assault complaints classified as false, only six led to arrest, and only two led to actual charges.)

Studies in Europe and in the US put these rates at between 2 per cent and 6 per cent.

In Singapore, according to the Ministry of Home Affairs, of the 250 reported cases of serious sexual crimes (rape and sexual assault by penetration) a year from 2014 to 2018, police charged or warned the complainants for making false reports in only 10 cases – comparable to the rate in the UK.

It’s important to note that, although the two are frequently lumped together, these cases shouldn’t be confused with cases that don’t result in prosecution because of lack of evidence. In fact, experts suggest that the number of false reports may themselves be inflated because of the way crimes are sometimes classified around the world.

In the UK, for example, police sometimes record cases as “no crime” or “unfounded” because of insufficient corroborating evidence. As many types of sexual harassment – flashing, verbal harassment for example – occur without leaving any definitive evidence, one would expect this investigative outcome to be fairly common.

Yet this does not square with the deliberate, targeted deception that false accusers supposedly practise, as popular imagination would have it.

Although this doesn’t appear to be a problem with the crime data in Singapore, the conflation of cases of false accusations and cases without sufficient evidence continues to hold sway in public opinion. This confusion may be one of the reasons why false accusations are perceived by the public as much higher than they actually are.

FALSE ACCUSATIONS DON’T JUST HAPPEN IN CASES OF SEXUAL ASSAULT

There’s no evidence that the rate of false accusations of rape is higher than that of other crimes. However, false sexual abuse accusations receive disproportionately higher levels of attention than other types of false accusations.

Take, for example, false accusations involving theft. How many of us remember the 72-year-old man who, just a month ago, was investigated for a false report claiming he had been robbed by two unknown men? Or the 48-year-old man charged with providing false information to the police when he claimed that one of his workers had stolen S$2,800 in cash from a co-worker?

In those cases, irrational generalisations don’t run wild – we would be laughed at if we extrapolated from these that significant numbers of men who report theft are lying about it or doing it for attention.

But when it comes to sexual violence, a crime that is heavily gendered, with victim-survivors being overwhelmingly female, the lingering stain of misogyny is hard to scrub away. Tropes about lying, untrustworthy women have long been deployed to discredit those who would challenge the status quo.

Accordingly, stereotypes about false accusers condition us to imagine them as women. In reality, though, men can and do make false reports too. In 2019, a 34-year-old man provided false information to an investigation officer, saying that his 50-year-old Singaporean boyfriend had force-fed him a pill and raped him at their home while he was unconscious. Yet we tend to harp on cases of women making false accusations.

THE HARM OF THE FALSE REPORTING MYTH

Such an imagined prevalence of false accusations has real-world effects. For one, it impedes justice.

There are a variety of reasons why women choose not to officially report a rape or sexual assault, but the fear of not being believed is often a prominent reason.

In an AWARE-Ipsos survey on workplace sexual harassment published in January, 20 per cent did not report their sexual harassment because they feared no one would believe them – a fear fuelled by social media comments harping on about false accusations.

Second, incorrect and unreliable assumptions about false complaints could create biases and sway how rape allegations are managed if we are not careful.

Research has investigated the chasm between the high rates at which police officers believe false allegations to be made, and the actual low rates of false allegations. A 2005 study found that police officers in the UK believed half of cases to be false, a sharp contrast from the more accurate rate of 4 per cent (as per the Home Office study).

LEGAL FRAMEWORKS PROTECT AGAINST FALSE ACCUSATIONS

Making an accusation of sexual abuse is often onerous and traumatising for survivors with plenty of hard evidence on hand.

Considering this, it’s mind-boggling why anyone would entertain the idea that many women are expending significant effort, time and money, and subjecting themselves to cross-examination, investigations that can last well over a year, and public backlash, for some sort of ill-defined personal gain.

The fact is that the criminal justice system in Singapore is well-positioned to weed out false reports, no matter how few they may be. The police take a serious view of the waste of public investigative resources.

For giving false information to a public servant, one can be jailed for up to a year and fined up to S$5,000.

In addition to criminal consequences for complainants, there are also potential civil consequences. The person falsely accused can sue the complainant for defamation on the basis that their reputation was damaged by their false allegations.

False accusations of sexual abuse do happen, and when they do, real harm is done to the accused. Nobody should be put through the trauma of defending themselves against an act they did not commit.

But looking at the facts, we have to keep our imaginations in check and not succumb to bogeyman narratives that allow abusers to escape accountability for their actions.

Dr Yeo Sow Nam, the anaesthetist acquitted earlier this week, himself spoke to the need to treat all reports of sexual assault with sensitivity and rigour.

Referring to “the good, necessary and difficult work of ensuring access to justice for real victims of sex crimes, many of whom already hesitate to accuse their attackers publicly”, the doctor hoped that his verdict would not “discourage real victims of sex crimes from coming forward, or set back the moral agenda in their favour”.

The vast majority of sexual abuse accusations can and should be taken seriously. That remains the foundational premise with which we should handle such cases.

Shailey Hingorani, Head of Research and Advocacy, AWARE

9 September 2021: Get to Know AWARE Night

Join us at our popular Get to Know AWARE Night, happening again this September.

Explore the HERstory of AWARE and learn what we do to support women and improve women’s rights in Singapore.

Come and meet other AWARE members and supporters of gender equality, participate in discussions with us and experience the spirit that has kept AWARE’s flame burning strong for the last 35 years.

Date: Thursday, 9 September 2021

Time: 7.00pm to 9.30pm

EVENT WILL BE CONDUCTED ON ZOOM. PLEASE REGISTER TO RECEIVE ZOOM LINK.

Register here!

Give parents paid miscarriage leave to heal

This was originally published in The Straits Times on August 11 2021. 

The Association of Women for Action and Research (Aware) welcomes the changes to the Child Development Co-Savings Act, especially the recognition of stillbirths through the extension of birth-linked leave and benefits to parents of stillborn children.

This will grant parents who lose a child after the 22nd week of pregnancy more time to heal physically and emotionally.

A study published last year found that 16 per cent of women who had a miscarriage suffered long-term post-traumatic stress, and 17 per cent experienced long-term anxiety.

Such negative health effects are likely prolonged by going back to work too quickly after the miscarriage, even for fathers.

Furthermore, the distress faced by parents is often amplified by misconceptions around miscarriages, such as that miscarriage represents some sort of parenting failure, or that it is a personal matter with no bearing on one’s professional life.

Aware’s Workplace Harassment and Discrimination Advisory has seen clients who face this issue.

One client was given two weeks of hospitalisation leave after her miscarriage, but she cut it a week short after receiving pressure to return to work.

Despite her doing so, her manager gave her the cold shoulder when she returned.

This escalated to exclusion from work meetings after she took leave for her follow-up medical appointments.

To help parents come to terms with their loss, New Zealand recently introduced three days of paid miscarriage leave for those who miscarry before their 20th week of pregnancy.

Taiwan and South Korea also offer five days of leave if mothers miscarry early on in their pregnancy, while mothers in Indonesia are entitled to 11/2 months of miscarriage leave.

Given that one in six pregnancies ends in miscarriage, we hope that the Singapore Government can follow suit and offer support to these couples by introducing five days of paid miscarriage leave.

It will also ensure that they would not have to sacrifice their sick or annual leave, or feel compelled to resume work sooner during a difficult period.

Lee Yoke Mun, Projects Executive, AWARE

2, 9, 16 September 2021: Birds & Bees, a workshop for parents about sex education

“What should I do if I catch my child watching porn?”

“How do I start talking to my child about romantic relationships?”

“How can I talk to my child about sex without making it sound like a lecture?

“How can I let my child know that I’m on his/her side and care about what he/she feels?

Most parents believe that it is important to talk to their children about sex, but many are unsure how to do it. Or, when to start having these conversations and about what. Where do children get answers to the questions they can’t ask their parents? The internet is one source, and young people themselves say they are most likely to ask peers and romantic partners. Wouldn’t you rather they turn towards you? The “ask-able” parent who is open to questions, ready to make an effort to listen without judgement and engage in a dialogue?

Who should attend: Parents with children of all ages will benefit, although parents with tweens and teens are more likely to find the case studies and discussions in groups immediately relevant.

Date: Consecutive Thursdays – 2, 9 and 16 Sep 2021 (Participants are expected to attend all three sessions)

Time: 8:00-9:30pm

Workshop Fee: $20 (in total)

Survey: After you sign up, you will be asked to complete a short pre-workshop survey about the age(s) and number of your children. This is very important so that parents with children of similar ages can be grouped together to that you will get the most out of the workshop.

Special instructions for online workshop: As small-group discussions are a big part of the workshop, participants are expected to switch on their video as well as audio whenever possible, and to join in the discussions for maximum benefit.

Refunds and cancellations: Unfortunately we will not be offering refunds. In exceptional circumstances, if you are unable to attend the subsequent sessions, you will be able to join the next set of workshops if you write in to publiceducation@aware.org.sg in advance giving your reasons.

 

**If you would like to join the workshop but cannot make it at this time, please fill in the indication of interest form.

Register here!

21, 28 August 2021: Birds & Bees, a workshop for parents about sex education

“What should I do if I catch my child watching porn?”

“How do I start talking to my child about romantic relationships?”

“How can I talk to my child about sex without making it sound like a lecture?

“How can I let my child know that I’m on his/her side and care about what he/she feels?

Most parents believe that it is important to talk to their children about sex, but many are unsure how to do it. Or, when to start having these conversations and about what. Where do children get answers to the questions they can’t ask their parents? The internet is one source, and young people themselves say they are most likely to ask peers and romantic partners. Wouldn’t you rather they turn towards you? The “ask-able” parent who is open to questions, ready to make an effort to listen without judgement and engage in a dialogue?

Attend this workshop to explore how you can work on developing your own strategies to enhance the trust and bond with your child! Places are limited, so do sign up quickly!

Date: Saturday – 21 & 28 August 2021 (Participants are expected to attend BOTH sessions )

Time: 3:30 – 5:30pm (2 hours)

Workshop Fee: $15 (in total)

Survey: After you sign up, you will be asked to complete a short pre-workshop survey about the age(s) and number of your children. This is very important so that parents with children of similar ages can be grouped together to that you will get the most out of the workshop.

Special instructions for online workshop: As small-group discussions are a big part of the workshop, participants are expected to switch on their video as well as audio whenever possible, and to join in the discussions for maximum benefit.

Refunds and cancellations: Unfortunately we will not be offering refunds. In exceptional circumstances, if you are unable to attend the subsequent sessions, you will be able to join the next set of workshops if you write in to publiceducation@aware.org.sg in advance giving your reasons.

**If you would like to join the workshop but cannot make it at this time, please fill in the indication of interest form.

 

This event has been postponed. Apologies for the inconvenience.

12 November 2021: Sexual Assault First Responder Training (Online Session)

Understand trauma reactions and learn tangible skills to support sexual violence survivors at this workshop by AWARE.

“Are you sure that happened? Why didn’t you fight back? You should have known better.” These are some common responses survivors of sexual assault have heard, which may further their feelings of doubt, guilt and shame.

It is not always easy for survivors to tell someone about what happened; in fact, for some survivors, it can be especially daunting. So the way their loved ones respond becomes pivotal in their journey of recovery. First response that is sensitive to a survivor’s needs and choices is necessary in preventing re-victimisation.

This Sexual Assault First Responder Training helps familiarise participants with trauma reactions and symptoms to better contribute to a survivor’s well-being. In this workshop, we will share more on the following:

  1. Definition of sexual assault and harassment
  2. Recognising Singapore’s legal framework
  3. Understanding consent
  4. Understanding the impact of sexual assault and trauma on survivors
  5. Role of a first responder
  6. Providing support to survivors of sexual assault
  7. Resources available for help
  8. Key skills such as ensuring safety, active listening and empathy

Date: Friday, 12 November 2021

Time: 5.30-8.30pm

Venue: Please note this workshop will be online only. Participants will be emailed the Zoom link shortly before the session date. As a commitment to this training we will be asking all participants to turn on their video throughout the session.

This popular workshop has been made affordable to all. While you are welcome to pay what you can, we suggest a sum of $30 per workshop attendee. The donations made are non-refundable and no tax-exempt receipts are provided.

Persons of all genders and nationalities are more than welcome to attend.

We strongly request that all participants commit to the full duration of the 3-hour workshop (there are breaks!) to ensure that everyone will get the opportunity to engage in interactive discussions and learn useful skills. This includes keeping your video ON and utilising the audio to participate.

Register here