Get up-close and personal with the stars of Celebrate! Read our interviews with Lunarin, Baracuda Batucada, MICappella, Like A Band and Aarthi Sankar.
Find out about their music, their passions and what AWARE means to each of them.
For more on Celebrate! performer Inch Chua visit her website.
AWARE contributes to human rights submission to UN by local NGOs
A loose and informal grouping of local civil society organisation, including AWARE, has made a 10-page submission to the United Nation’s Human Rights Council as part of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process.
This process, launched by the UN in 2006, involves a review of the human rights record of all UN member states once every four years. It provides an opportunity for all States to declare what actions they have taken to improve the human rights situations in their countries and to overcome challenges to the enjoyment of human rights. The review covers the five categories of human rights – civil, political, social, cultural and economic.
Singapore will be up for review in May 2011. After the civil society stakeholders submit their reports, the Government will subsequently issue its report. The materials are then considered by a working group of the Council and points are discussed with the state and other parties, after which a report and recommendations will be made.
The UPR is similar to the CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women) process, except that the UPR deals with all aspects of human rights . AWARE has been involved in the CEDAW process since 2004.
CEDAW is one of several human rights review processes initiated by the UN, with the UPR serving as an over-arching mechanism. The aim of the UPR, says the UN, is to remind states “of their responsibility to fully respect and implement all human rights and fundamental freedoms”.
Women’s rights are, of course, an important part of human rights. Since AWARE is already a participant in the UN human rights process through CEDAW, taking part in the coalition of Singapore NGOs for UPR was a logical next step.
On women’s rights, the UPR submission points out that while progress has been made there remain areas where women in Singapore face discrimination and other obstacles. It notes that Article 12 (2) of Singapore’s Constitution prohibits discrimination on certain grounds but excludes gender.
The recommendations made in the submission on women’s rights include:
The first four-year UPR cycle began in 2008. In the follow-up reviews during the second UPR cycle, from 2012 to 2015, the focus will be on the implementation of the recommendations made during the first cycle.
The civil society organisations that made the submission, apart from AWARE, are: Challenged People’s Alliance and Network (CAN!); Deaf and Hard of Hearing Federation; Humanitarian Organization for Migration Economics; MARUAH (Working Group for an ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism, Singapore); People Like Us; Singaporeans for Democracy; and Transient Workers Count Too. MARUAH coordinated the effort
The UPR Report submitted by the civil society organisations can be downloaded from MARUAH’s website at http://maruah.org/
For more information about the UPR: Basic Facts.
Key Documents:
In The News:
Update:
Come join us at Ignite the exciting unconference conference that’s a part of the festivities at Celebrate! AWARE’s 25th Birthday Party.
Ignite is an “un-conference” – A gathering of people who get together to openly exchange ideas. This unstructured, participative format is based on BARCAMP which has been globally successful particularly in tech culture.
Now we are bringing it to Singapore’s civil society.
Barcamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from participants who are the main actors of the event. – Barcamp.org
So how does it work?
Who is allowed to participate?
Everybody. This is for the entire community. There are no restrictions on participation.
What are the talks about?
Anything Else?
Help us gauge numbers…
The final vote will be held on the day. But here’s a taste of some of the topics that have been offered. We will keep adding to this list as more topics are submitted.
[poll id=”3″]
Media release
AWARE welcomes the proposed amendments to the Women’s Charter but calls for a slew of adjustments and additions to strengthen the legislation and ensure greater compliance with its provisions.
The key recommendation is that a central body be set up to administer maintenance payments and facilitate the collection of outstanding payments, with powers to access information from government databases.
Adding its voice to other calls that have been made for such an agency, AWARE said in its submission to the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS): “The proposed enhancements do not address one of the greatest weaknesses of the present system, namely, the onerous burden on the under-resourced claimant to go to Court repeatedly to enforce defaults in maintenance payments.”
The many trips to the Court “wear down the claimant and cause her to give up a right enshrined in the Women’s Charter and granted by Court. The claimant, often a single mum struggling to maintain her job and take care of her children, cannot afford to keep taking time off work. The current changes do not take away this problem.”
AWARE said it was making its recommendations on the strength of:
• its many years of helping women via a crisis helpline, counselling service and legal clinic
• the professional experience of several family lawyers amongst its active volunteers
• its monitoring of trends in gender and family matters.
Call it ‘Family Charter’ instead
A second strong recommendation is that the Women’s Charter be renamed ‘Family Charter’ as its provisions cover “every conceivable aspect of marital and family law – registration and dissolution of marriages, division of matrimonial assets, maintenance provisions and the welfare of children. Thus, the Family Charter is a more accurate name for this important piece of legislation.”
The name “Women’s Charter” gives the impression that this is a statute that protects women against men and that men have less rights than women in Singapore.
“This misconception,” AWARE said, “may contribute towards the acrimony in a divorce as the husband, feeling that the system is against him (because it is governed by the Women’s Charter), retaliates against his wife and children by not paying maintenance.”
Pre-marriage counselling for foreign brides
Another call by AWARE is for the proposed mandatory marriage preparatory course for certain groups, such as minors, to be extended to couples where one party is a foreign citizen who does not speak English. The primary target here is an intended marriage between a Singaporean male and a less educated foreign bride from the region, often brokered by a third party matchmaking agency and entered into very quickly.
In such cases there can be significant cultural and language differences between the spouses and this can lead to problems. A foreign wife who is in Singapore on a social visit pass is especially vulnerable when the marriage sours because she is completely dependent on her Singaporean husband.
AWARE’s helpline has handled many cases of foreign wives forced to leave their children in Singapore when their Singaporean husband decided, unilaterally, that the marriage was over and refused to renew his spouse’s social visit pass. His wife is thus forced to leave Singapore, leaving the children of such marriages suddenly without a mother.
Requiring such couples to attend a marriage preparatory course would help ensure that foreign spouses-to-be are clear about their immigration status, while also helping both parties better understand each other’s expectations in marriage.
Other recommendations made by AWARE include:
Enforcement of maintenance
a) Require divorcees planning to remarry to declare any maintenance order on them, and not just if they are in arrears on such an order, so prospective spouses are aware of this financial obligation
b) Provide for late interest on maintenance arrears to encourage prompt payments
c) With habitual defaulters, allow access to the defaulter’s CPF to pay for the arrears in child maintenance payments
d) Allow, in appropriate cases and where it is just and equitable, for maintenance for husbands, such as when he is sick or incapacitated
Divorce Time Frames
With the trend being for people to marry later, the time bar for the filing of divorce writs should be shortened. This is so that when a first marriage does not work out, the couple can end the marriage more quickly and thus each be able to try and find another partner and start a family before they get too old.
AWARE has therefore called for the time bar for seeking divorce to be reduced from three to two years, with similar reductions in the time frames for desertion and separation situations.
AWARE President Nicole Tan said the recommendations had been drawn up after much thought and deliberation, with much input from both the counselling staff and the family lawyers among the organisation’s members, and she hoped the authorities would give due consideration to all the points.
“The Women’s Charter was a progressive document when it was first enacted,” she said. “Fifty years have passed and it is timely to update this important legislation to take into account emerging social trends such as the increase of trans-border marriages and the increased median age of marriage for both women and men.”
Dowloads:
For more information, please contact:
Corinna Lim, Executive Director
ed@aware.org.sg
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It’s our 25th birthday bash and you’re invited to our place for some fun-filled, family-friendly revelry.
We’ve planned a full day of exciting activities including performances by songbird Inch Chua and rocksters Lunarin; tasty bites, handicrafts and vintage clothes stalls at our flea market; Interactive art projects all done on the day itself by you, our guests; as well as Ignite an exciting user-generated conference” inspired by BarCamp.
So come join us to celebrate women, celebrate how far we’ve come and celebrate 25 fabulous years of working together for gender equality!
WHEN: Saturday November 27th, 12 noon to 8pm.
WHERE:
AWARE Centre. Open space outside Block 5, Dover Crescent.
Click here for a map
WHY: Because 25 years is worth celebrating!
AWARE needs volunteers pre-event as well as on the day itself. Read more here and email intern@aware.org.sg to be a part of this exciting day
AWARE’S popular Roundtable discussions continue with a presentation of a new study on violence against women in Singapore. Come and listen to Chan Wing Cheong, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, NUS.
Existing data do not give a full picture of the extent of violence against women in Singapore or the victims profile. The present study is the first full scale attempt to uncover the prevalence and types of violence against women in Singapore through a random sampling of Singapore households. Socio-demographic highlights of those women who experienced violence in the last 12 months will be presented at this discussion.
It is hoped that this study will contribute to policy evaluation of Singapores efforts to curb violence against women and lead to cross cultural analyses with other parts of the world.
Speaker: Chan Wing Cheong, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, NUS
Chair: Dana Lam, president of AWARE
When: 7:30 PM on November 11th
Where: at Aware, see details here.
Register here
Robin Rheaume
Yup – it is a scary world sometimes. Smart phones and social networking can be fun but you need to be street smart about the brave new world of instant information.
Technology gives scammers and harassers more ways to find their way into your life. And while some risk are gender neutral, in many cases, women are specifically targeted – be it for romance scams, or sexually related blackmail.
These are the risks your mother never told you about…
The ease with which photos can be taken, copied and transmitted makes them highly susceptible to misuse.
Shocking but it happens (yes even in Singapore). Your landlord (or someone else) may have hidden webcams in your flat … and it may or may not be illegal depending on:
If you find yourself in this situation, insist that the webcam owner immediately removed the cameras… and consider looking for a new place to live where you will feel safer. Consult a lawyer to find out what legal options may be available.
Of course it goes without saying that it is NOT A GOOD IDEA to let anyone take naked photos of you unless you are prepared to have them released into cyberspace! But whether the blackmailer actually took a picture of you naked or not, he could say he did while you were sleeping (say if it was an ex).
The young woman contacted police on Tuesday, telling them she had received a number of text messages from an unknown mobile phone number demanding $5,000, or photographs of her naked would be posted online. She had also discovered that her image had been used to advertise sex on a website. – Straits Times July 2010
Police have noted a new crime trend where Internet users are propositioned by perpetrators whom had befriended them online to perform sexual acts in front of a webcam, and thereafter extorted by the perpetrator who would threaten to circulate compromising photos and videos of the victim. – Singapore Police September 2010
Note: Blackmail (“Putting A Person In Fear In Order To Commit Extortion”) is illegal in Singapore so you may refer the matter to the police.
It just takes a second and it can happen just about anywhere: in the MRT, in a lift, standing at a crosswalk… we’ve even heard stories of students doing it to their teachers in class.
What should you do? Start by grabbing the perpetrator’s phone and yelling at him in public! Make sure he is so embarrassed it never happens again.
Cyberstalking is the use of the Internet or other electronic means to stalk or harass a person or group. This can take many forms ranging from bullying between children to harassment of adults. The harasser can be a schoolmate, a colleague or even a member of your family. The bully, whether age 8 or 80, may make use of SMS, online chat, blogs and social networking sites like Facebook.
Cyberstalking can have serious repercussions: victims can become depressed and there have been countless cases where this has led to suicide. It’s not a joke. There are no laws in Singapore which specifically address harassment by electronic means however the stalker may be guilty of criminal intimidation. Check out the Singapore site Don’t Cyber Bully for more info.
If you are being harassed then (1) do NOT reply to the harasser – you may provoke a “flame war” which will only make matters worse, but (2) do NOT delete the messages – you may need them as evidence. (3) Collect evidence by taking note of URLs and taking screen shots of abusive messages. (4) When the abuse is taking place on a website, report the abuse to the website manager. (5) Put filters in place for email from the harasser. (6) If you are feeling depressed about the situation, get in touch with a counsellor… and (7) if you are feeling threatened, consider reporting the harassment to the authorities.
Most scams are simple attempts to dupe you out of cash and are usually transparent to a seasoned internet user:
Sure you can spot them… but some scams are a bit more sophisticated:
The perpetrators trawl chat rooms and other social media looking for lonely hearts to befriend. These charlatans are repeatedly successful at conning their online sweethearts out of thousands of dollars. Often the victims will not report the crime because they feel foolish.
He told me that we could only be together after he had completed his divorce proceedings. His wife lived back in LA and he couldn’t afford the flight back. So I paid for his flight. Then when he got to LA he said he lost his wallet so I sent him a bit more… in all I sent him over $10,000 but then never heard from him again.*
These con artists can be very persuasive. They will send photos of themselves which make them look kind and attractive (the photos are just stolen off the net).
Some scammers even target gay people in particular because they know many will be too afraid to out themselves by going to the police.
* Told to the author by a personal friend. The money was never recovered.
These scams come in two flavours:
If you have already been tricked do not be ashamed. These men and women can be very convincing and they often have a lot of experience conning people. Report the matter to authorities! These criminals will keep doing the same thing to others until they are stopped.
And remember that any offer on the internet that appears too good to be true probably is.
There are a number of companies that produce books and/or videos which they claim feature the most important people in their respective industries.
Congratulations! You have been selected to be in our prestigious publication!
You receive a notice saying you have been selected… but you must, of course, pay a registration fee! Similarly, you may find you have been selected to be “part of a documentary production” but again must make advance payment in order to be featured.
This is not strictly illegal if they do produce the publication promised… but what is produced may be no better than a few photocopied pages bound together… and they will probably encourage you to buy copies for yet more money!
A company offers the potential to make a huge income from working at home without any experience… but eventually you are asked to pay a fee for registration or training materials. Don’t hold your breath for that first pay check because… it is NOT coming!
Buying
Was the internet invented just to distribute porn and steal credit card numbers? Some times it seems so. But what can an earnest shopper do to protect herself?
NEVER give you credit card information to any firm with a dubious/unknown reputation. Even if the company itself seems legitimate but perhaps small or unprofessional, if they do not have strong data protection, their system could get hacked in to and your credit card details revealed.
Selling
Even selling items online (like through eBay) where you are receiving cash can be dangerous: once the item has been sent, the buyer can tell PayPal it was faulty and ask for their money back. Don’t count on protection from eBay or PayPal in these situations.
This involves using emails or websites to trick you into handing over private information – like your credit card number, passwords to you bank account or other private data that the fraudster can later use to “steal your identity” (pose as you in order to commit further fraud).
Banks and credit card companies will never ask you to verify your password with them. Neither will Yahoo or PayPal.
www.yourbanksname.com
is NOT the same as
www.yourbanksname.corporatepaymentverification.com
And as for all you experts who think you will never get fooled… see if you can pass this test!
This list of threats is by no means exhaustive. Criminals are crafty : they will keep finding new ways to misuse technology.
Advances in technology have given us great new ways to record and exchange information. The internet + social media + camera phones = lots of fun and great possibility for creativity and collaboration. But the era of cool gadgets have come with a whole host of new threats.
Have fun but stay aware!
More:
Feel free to share your stories and comments below.
Naomi Wolf explains 3rd wave feminism …
Proponents of third-wave feminism claim that it allows women to define feminism for themselves by incorporating their own identities into the belief system of what feminism is and what it can become through one’s own perspective. It can change with every generation and individual… Third-wave feminism seeks to challenge or avoid what it deems the second wave’s “essentialist” definitions of femininity, which often assumed a universal female identity and over-emphasized experiences of upper-middle-class white women. – More: Wikipedia
So are you 2nd or 3rd wave… or maybe 4th!
AWARE refers to the report on “Singapore Girls may finally get maternity benefit” (ST, Sept 10) and are glad that some steps are being taken in the right direction. Nonetheless, the report begs the question about the validity of contractual clauses which require pregnant women to resign.
The report stated that Singapore Airlines (“SIA”) requires its female flight attendants to quit flying after the first trimester of pregnancy (“Quit Flying Requirement”). The reported effect is to deprive female attendants of all maternity benefits unless they can secure ground jobs, which are not easy to get. It appears that pregnant female attendants also lose their jobs. We understand that other airline companies may have similar contractual provisions. At first sight, these provisions are discriminatory and unfair.
The report raises some questions:
What is SIA’s basis for imposing the Quit Flying Requirement?
b) If the basis is solely to protect female attendants or foetuses, can this not be achieved in a fairer way by providing alternative employment for female attendants during pregnancy and allowing them to fly again after their pregnancy?
We hope SIA will respond to these questions.
The report raises some legal issues as well.
AWARE has not had sight of the terms of SIA’s employment contract with its female flight attendants. But we question if such practices should be allowed under our employment statutes which provide for maternity benefits to be paid to employees whose contracts are terminated within 6 months of their confinement.
We note that the Employment Act also prohibits employers from contracting out of their statutory obligations.
If the Quit Flying Clause and similar requirements imposed by other companies are valid, then is there a serious loophole in the law which should be rectified to ensure compliance with the national policy of encouraging childbirth and eliminating gender discrimination?
Further, these requirements are contrary to the principles of the Fair Employment Practices Guidelines that companies should “treat employees fairly and with respect and implement progressive human resource management systems’ and ” provide employees with equal opportunity to help them achieve their full potential”.
We hope that MOM will provide guidelines on these points, and take the necessary action to ensure that pregnant women are not discriminated against by employers through the clever use of contractual clauses which effectively result in the denial of maternity benefits.
Corinna Lim
Executive Director, AWARE
This letter was also published in the Straits Times
Update: SIA’s Reply
Headline: SIA has Returning Mothers Scheme and more being done
Date: Monday, 20 September 2010
Straits Times Page: A19
(C) Singapore Press Holdings Limited
I REFER to last Friday’s letter by Ms Corinna Lim (“Pregnancy and flying: Question of fairness in contractual clauses”).
The nature of a flight attendant’s job is multi-faceted, involving not only the provision of service to customers, but also ensuring the safety of our passengers in an unforeseen event. The physical demands of the job mean that all our cabin crew must be fit to perform their duties, and as a responsible employer, we would not think of compromising the physical well-being of pregnant crew and their unborn children.
Our cabin crew are on five-year contracts, rather than on permanent terms, and it is for the reasons stated above that the employment of female crew ceases after the first trimester of a pregnancy. Pregnant crew may then apply for a ground posting. While every effort is taken to produce a match, the reality is that vacancies on the ground are limited and applicants do need to possess relevant skills for a particular job.
We invest heavily in our cabin crew and deeply appreciate their contributions to the company. This is why we have had in place for some years a Returning Mothers Scheme, which allows female crew to rejoin Singapore Airlines in their former capacity, provided they meet the criteria for them to carry out their duties. The scheme has been a success and was formulated in consultation with our staff and unions.
We also recognise that more can be done in the best interests of our female cabin crew population. For some time now we have been in discussion with our unions on a scheme which will provide an ex gratia payment to pregnant crew whose employment ceases. We are in the advanced stages in this process and any new initiative will be communicated to our crew at the appropriate time.
Tan Pee Teck
Senior Vice-President, Cabin Crew
Singapore Airlines
