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Single parents need homes, too: Rosa’s story

Single parents in Singapore grapple with a myriad of problems and restrictive rules when it comes to meeting a basic need – housing. Think this should change? Learn more at our upcoming dialogue session on housing access for single parent families. Read more about our recommendations for how policies should be more inclusive of single parent families.

Below is Rosa’s story on her experiences with applying for housing.

Rosa* is an unmarried mother of a five-month-old baby. They are currently living in Rosa’s friend’s flat.

When Rosa was married in 1997, she lived in an HDB flat co-owned by her then-husband and mother-in-law.  As she was only 19 years old then, she did not really understand the HDB policies and signed whatever documents her ex-husband told her to sign. Although she was not a co-owner of the flat, her ex-husband received the First-Timer grant for married couples and she was considered to have used up her first-timer rights as well.

On the day of her divorce in 1998, Rosa was kicked out of the flat and spent the night in the void deck. She returned to the flat in the morning to collect her belongings.

“I was only 20/21 years old when I went through my divorce and I had to go through it alone. Nobody was there to help me (in court).”

Rosa then moved into her parents’ (father and step-mother) flat. However, her parents were undergoing divorce at that time and so she soon had to find alternative living arrangements.

Two years later, she shifted into her then-boyfriend’s house. They lived together from 2001 to 2005.

Since then, she has been moving around renting from the private market or living with her friends, with no permanent place to call her home.

In 2013, Rosa went to HDB to try to get a public rental flat but was told that she needed a spouse before she could rent. She then tried to rent with a friend, but their combined incomes exceeded the income cap of $1,500. At that time, she was earning $2,500.

Rosa then switched to a part-time job with a lower income in order to earn below the income cap, but her friend decided that she did not want to rent anymore as she was getting married.

In 2014, Rosa and another friend tried to buy a flat together under the Joint Singles Scheme. However, she did not have enough CPF savings to afford the flat.

Rosa is estranged from her father and siblings. When she revealed her pregnancy in late 2016 to her family, she got into a fight with them and her father used denigrating words to describe her. Rosa described her siblings as “one year one time siblings”. Her family – save for one sister – has not reached out to offer support or  check in on her at all since the birth of her son six months ago.

Without anyone to support her in childcare, Rosa faced a lot of difficulties finding paid work and relied on friends to help take care of her baby while she took on ad-hoc jobs. She also did not have the benefit of maternity leave, given the nature of her employment. She rested only for seven days in her aunt’s house after giving birth to her son and found that she  could no longer stay there. No other family members offered to let her stay with them.

Although Rosa and her baby currently have a roof over their heads living in her friend’s flat, Rosa felt that this cannot be a permanent arrangement. She is paying $500 a month for rent, a sum she could barely afford as she earns only about $400 a month from ad-hoc jobs. When her friend’s relatives came to visit, her friend would request that Rosa leave the flat with her baby.

“This is my friend and her husband’s flat… It’s their first home and they want privacy… I’m always thinking ‘where do we go now?’ ‘where should we go next?’”

Rosa has seen two MPs when she was pregnant in order to appeal to HDB for a flat (either rental or purchase). However, the response from HDB was that Rosa should stay with her father who is currently living in a four-room flat with his current wife (her father is not a co-owner of the flat).

““We encourage you to stay with (your father) for mutual care and support, since family should be the first line of support for those who are in need” read the HDB letter. However, this was not a feasible solution as Rosa shared an acrimonious relationship with her father.

Rosa also expressed that she experienced shame and stigma from her community for being an unmarried mother. She was also worried about being able to support her baby. Although her baby qualifies for a Child Development Account, Rosa has not received any letter informing her about it. She also did not qualify for financial assistance in terms of Baby Bonus.

“I don’t want my baby to go through what I’ve been through. Who will take care of my baby if something happens to me?”

She received assistance for her hospitalisation fees when she gave birth to her son, and was assigned a medical social worker. Regarding her housing problems, her social worker told her to go to a shelter as a last resort. Rosa now receives financial aid from MSF. However, it is a tight amount ($600) that has to go into her rental and all the costs that come with raising a baby by herself.

* Pseudonym

Single parents need homes, too: Sam’s story

Single parents in Singapore grapple with a myriad of problems and restrictive rules when it comes to meeting a basic need – housing. Think this should change? Learn more at our upcoming dialogue session on housing access for single parent families. Read more about our recommendations for how policies should be more inclusive of single parent families.

Below is Sam’s story on his experiences with applying for housing.

___________

Sam* is a single father with shared custody and shared care and control of his two children, aged 7 and 9 years. His divorce was finalised in late 2012. The matrimonial flat was sold in 2013 and he received over one-third of the profits. He has been staying in his parents’ three-room flat since. On some days, his children come to stay with him – all three must stay in the same room, and he is starting to feel the space constraints.

Sam found the resale market to be too expensive and he wanted to live near to his parents. Thus, in 2015, Sam bidded for a BTO flat and got the selection around six months later. He paid $2,000 for the option fee and was given the floorplan. HDB later found out that he had shared care and control of his children and insisted that he needed his ex-spouse’s written consent in order to buy the flat.

Sam and his ex-spouse are not on speaking terms, having gone through a bitter divorce. He tried to email her to ask her to sign the consent form, but received no reply. He thought that anyone would find it hard to agree to the terms stated in the consent form, which required the signatory to waive potential access to subsidised HDB flats in the future. He was surprised that this requirement still applied beyond the original debarment period after sale of the flat.

When he explained to an HDB officer why it was near impossible to get his ex-wife’s signature, the reply he got was ‘this is your problem’.

He tried to seek help from his MP on this matter and went to the Meet-the-People session four times, but only managed to speak to his MP twice. Sam was not sure if his MP wrote an appeal letter to HDB.

In late 2016, his application was cancelled by HDB as he failed to get his ex-spouse’s consent. He received the refund for his option fee.

Sam then went to see a Minister, hoping that he would be able to appeal his case. He waited from 7.30pm to 10.45pm before he could see the Minister. The Minister agreed to try to get HDB to write a letter to his ex-spouse, seeking the consent signature. Sam did not see any copy of the communications between the Minister and HDB.

Sam also went to see another Minister for help – finally getting the chance to speak to him close to midnight – but was told ‘why are you here? You are not in my constituency’. The Minister agreed to help him. However, going to yet another MP also yielded no success in his appeal.

Despite the appeal letter from the first Minister, HDB ended up sending a letter to Sam saying that his appeal had failed due to his failure to get consent from his ex-spouse. He found this confusing and frustrating since he had understood that HDB would be asked to seek this consent.

Sam also spoke to a senior manager in HDB about his appeal but Sam felt that she did not seem clear on the policies herself. The most she offered was to speak to the legal team to see if Sam could apply for a flat with one child’s name (previously, his application was with both his children’s names), but did not explain why this approach would make any difference.

Sam feels that he does not have many options. He can only apply for a flat under the singles scheme, which will only be a two-room flat. However with his children growing up, he does not feel that there would be enough space for them in the available flats once they are a bit older, as they will still be spending the same amount of time living with him.

Sam suggests that the consent form for an ex-spouse to buy a subsidised flat be integrated into the divorce process, and form part of the negotiation over matrimonial assets by lawyers as part of that process.

*Pseudonym

Let’s Talk: Single parents need homes, too.

Everyone deserves a home. But Singapore’s housing policies create hardship for single-parent families. HDB’s complicated rules favour married couples, leaving single parents scrambling with frequent house moves, financial drain, strained family relationships, emotional stress and long waits, just for a place to call their own.

This must change. To mark International Day of Families, we warmly invite single parents and their children to engage with others from single-parent families through this in-depth dialogue session. As a supporter, the session will allow you to learn about the difficulties single parents face, and find out how you can help.

Date: 17 May 2017 (Wednesday)
Time: 7pm
Venue: AWARE Centre (5 Dover Crescent #01-22)
Light refreshments will be served
Childcare can be arranged – please email media@aware.org.sg with number of children and their ages, by 15 May
REGISTER HERE

Through continued engagement with policy-makers, and valuable conversations with the public, we hope to see an end to the policies that disadvantage single-parent families.

(This dialogue is not open to media. We welcome reporting on the points and issues raised, but no names and identities should be included. Representatives of the media will be required to identify themselves prior to the event, and no photos/videos are allowed without explicit consent.)

Read our report on single parents’ access to housing here and accompanying Annexes here. 

May-Housing

 

Sexual violence still shrouded in silence and shame, but no reason to punish victims

An edited version of this letter was first published in The Straits Times, on 21 April. 

We are disturbed by the statements in the recent judgment (“Man acquitted of raping lover’s daughter; no photos taken of alleged crime scene”, April 12) which appear to perpetuate certain myths relating to sexual violence.

A man was acquitted of raping a teenage girl, the daughter of his intimate partner.

One factor leading to the acquittal was that the victim had not been “prompt in her complaints”. The judge said: ”Someone so abused and humiliated would be expected to seek help and redress when she breaks her silence. …however, she was still reluctant to make a police report.”

This shows a worrying lack of understanding by the criminal justice system of the psychology of sexual assault victims.

The reality is that sexual crimes are substantially under-reported.

In 2016, 61% of survivors (out of 220 cases) reached out to the Sexual Assault Care Centre (SACC), Singapore’s only specialised centre for sexual assault survivors, within a year of their assault, and 20% after 5 years of their assault. Some even reached out to us 10 years after their assault. A majority of our clients do not report their experiences to anyone, including the police.

Moreover, the assault allegedly happened when the victim was 15, by a family-friend. The alleged perpetrator’s relationship to the victim’s mother complicates the circumstances further. From SACC’s experience, 8 out of 10 of sexual assault cases are committed by someone known to the survivor.

It is not uncommon for family members to respond to a child’s experience of assault with disbelief, anger or resentment towards the child, or an unwillingness to file a report, for fear of “losing face” or “breaking up the family”.

In one case that SACC saw, a young survivor did not tell anyone about her mother’s boyfriend assaulting as she did not want to see her mother lonely again, and because her perpetrator was liked by everyone.

The judge’s opinion that the alleged victim had “ample time to recover from any distress or embarrassment”, operates on the principle that there is a set recovery time – but recovery from sexual assault trauma is a long journey and not a ‘phase’ that has an end.

 

It is disheartening that false ideas of sexual violence are echoed by the criminal justice system. We hope that efforts are made to eliminate these myths on a systemic level so survivors can feel confident in seeking help.

Position Filled: Volunteer Senior Counsellor for AWARE’s Support Services

We are no longer accepting applicants for this role.

We are looking for an experienced counsellor to join us as a volunteer counsellor in the Support Services department.

The Support Services department provides help and information for women who are in distress or at a time of uncertainty in their lives. AWARE’s counselling services help women work through and deal with many different problems they face – sexual assault, marital problems, sexual harassment, spousal/partner abuse, depression, anxiety, self-esteem issues etc.

You should possess the following attributes:

  • Be above 35 years of age
  • Have at least a Degree (Bachelor’s, Master’s degree, or Postgraduate) in Counselling and/or Social Work
  • Have at least 10 years counselling experience; or at least 800 supervised counselling hours logged
  • Be proficient in spoken and written English; proficiency in at least one other language would be an advantage.
  • Strong belief in gender equality and the values of AWARE

Expected Commitment

  • Commit one year to volunteer at AWARE with a minimum of 90 hours of counselling over the course of the year.
  • Counsellors will be paid a transport allowance for every session.

If you are interested in this position and is able to meet all the criteria above, please email your CV to supportservices@aware.org.sg. In your CV, please highlight relevant counselling experiences.

If you have any questions, please drop an email to supportservices@aware.org.sg.

Administration of Muslim Law Act (AMLA): AWARE’s submissions to the government consultation

AWARE responded to the ongoing consultation regarding proposed changes to the Administration of Muslim Law Act (AMLA).  We offer these comments in the hope that the forthcoming changes can more robustly promote gender equality in outcomes under AMLA.

Since acceding to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination (CEDAW) in 1995, Singapore has placed reservations on key articles (notably, Art 2 and Art 16), citing the need to “protect the rights of minorities in the practice of their personal and religious law”, specifically AMLA.[1]

Some proposed changes described in the MCCY consultation paper[2] (specifically, paragraphs 7 and 17) appear to seek to move away from differential treatment based on gender, though they are very limited in scope and many substantive outcomes under AMLA remain unequal as to gender. More significantly, on 9 March, the Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs also announced the appointment of Ustazah Raihanah Halid as a President of the Syariah Court – the first woman to hold such a role.

We urge the government to further recognise that gender equality is compatible with respect for the rights of minorities, and to take further steps to reconcile AMLA with the standards set by CEDAW.

Read our submission in full here.

[1] ‘Singapore’s Fifth Periodic Report to the UN Committee for the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women’, October 2015, https://www.msf.gov.sg/policies/Women-Celebrating-Women/International-Obligations/Documents/Singapore%27s%20Fifth%20CEDAW%20Periodic%20Report.pdf.

[2] Consultation paper on draft Administration of Muslim Law Act (Amendment) Bill 2017, https://www.mccy.gov.sg/~/media/MCCY-corp/Topics/Community/Files/AMLA17_Consultation_Paper_14_Mar_2017.ashx

Barriers for women must be tackled at all levels

We were delighted that support for women’s aspirations was affirmed by Parliament for the first time (“More women should break glass ceiling, says Chuan-Jin”, 5 Apr).

Kudos must be given to the People’s Action Party Women’s Wing for tabling this.

To give everyone in society the chance to fulfill their potential, policy-makers must pay specific attention to the role of gender in influencing opportunities and outcomes.

This is the reason for the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination (CEDAW).  Singapore is a party to CEDAW and will be in dialogue with the United Nations CEDAW Committee later this year.

The move to set targets for corporate and charity boards is an especially welcome recognition that women’s under-representation is not necessarily going to automatically correct itself with time.  Proactive measures are needed.

We hope the government will also heed the call from MP Louis Ng to set targets for women’s representation in Parliament, which hovers at 23%.

Mr Ng cited research used by the CEDAW Committee, stating that when women make up at least 30% of legislative bodies, “there is a real impact on political style and the content of decisions, and political life is revitalized”.

Yet leadership is only the tip of the iceberg.  The longer-term key to gender equality is in the important points raised by Mr Ng and by NMP Kok Heng Leun on gender roles and stereotyping among children.

It is tempting to believe that attitudinal biases disappear naturally with time and the greater visibility of women in public life.

Yet many adults still reinforce gender stereotypes in interacting with children.  Some say that “Boys don’t cry”, or emphasise girls’ looks when talking to them.   They preselect toys or children’s media based on gender rather than individual personality.

Finally, we must recognise that gender barriers interact with other barriers.  For instance, some job-seeking women have their aspirations for a better life stymied by the prohibition on the headscarf some Muslim women wear in healthcare professions.

The headscarf has been found practically compatible with healthcare work in both Muslim-majority countries like Malaysia and Muslim-minority countries like the United Kingdom.

Over the last two years, AWARE has partnered with Daughters Of Tomorrow (DOT), an NGO working to empower lower-income women. Many of their beneficiaries who wear the headscarf face barriers in accessing certain jobs, because of prohibitions on it in the uniformed sector. Even beyond that, some employers still hold biases and prejudices against women who wear the headscarf. This causes them to lose out on employment opportunities.

AWARE promotes women’s right to choose what to wear. There are Muslim women who wear the headscarf just as there are Muslim women who do not. Granting access to jobs to the latter while banning the former is neither fair nor inclusive.

Wearing the headscarf has been found to be compatible with healthcare work in both Muslim-majority countries (such as Malaysia) and Muslim-minority countries (such as the UK). Better accommodating women’s religious observance, besides being a fair and inclusive move, would also help meet Singapore’s labour needs in the care sector, which are only set to grow as the population ages. After all, this issue has very real implications and consequences on the livelihoods of these women, and the need to engage with policy-makers and public sector officials is a growing one.

We acknowledge the government’s decision to debate the headscarf restrictions on a less public platform. Therefore, we will continue to directly engage policy-makers and Ministers on this issue, with pluralism and inclusivity in mind, in order to bring about changes that will positively impact women’s lives.

Community Art Project: The Unforgetting Space: A Curated History of Malay women in Singapore/Malaya

Background
Developed as a community-based art project, The Unforgetting Space collaborates with different communities in Singapore to invite their members to share historical episodes in the community that are missing or even misrepresented in the official narratives of Singapore. In so doing, we reclaim the narration of history from the state to the community, creating a Singapore narrative rich with diverse voices and perspectives.

Programme
The Unforgetting Space (2016 – ongoing): A Curated History of Malay women in Singapore/Malaya is a partnership with Aware’s project, Gender Equality Is Our Culture, to bring forth the voices of Malay women from different generations and backgrounds. This project consists of three events:

  1. A workshop for ~10 women who will produce an artwork (timeline) articulating episodes in their generation which affect their community
  2. An exhibition of the artwork inviting members of the community to respond with their own episodes
  3. An inter-generational dialogue among the community members based on the episodes/responses from the artwork which seeks to bridge differences between them and facilitate individual aspiration

Episodes/responses may also be chosen to be included in volume 2 of Perempuan: Muslim Women in Singapore Speak Out, which is an anthology of essays and poems written by Muslim women.

Workshop
Participants develop and map a curated history of Malay women in Malaya/Singapore using visual materials and text. The workshop details are:

  1. Introduction and briefing session
  2. Brainstorming
  3. Mapping: through narratives and research, identify histories, moments, stories
  4. Visualizing: participants will draw out materials (archival, images, stories, objects) to visualize and plot onto map
  5. Closing and reflection

Details
Date: 6 May 2017
Time: 1-5pm
Venue: Aware centre, Blk 5 Dover Crescent #01-22 S130005
Fee: Free!

REGISTER HERE

Facilitators
Tan Biyun makes work on issues concerning community life, human rights and social justice. Her recent works include ‘Future Trees & the Pulp of History’, Gillman Barracks (Singapore), ‘To Singapore with Love’, Substation (Singapore) and the performance, Waiting for Butterflies, Guyu Action Performance Festival (China) as a response against the environment destruction caused by overdevelopment

Nurul Huda Rashid is an educator, researcher-writer, and photographer interested in the study of narratives as medium, the spatial and bodily (gendered and other) as visual and sentient manifestations, and articulates them through written and visual projects. She has exhibited in group exhibitions, published in anthologies featuring women’s stories, and is currently working on an ethnographic project entitled ‘Women in War’.

Let’s Talk: Body Image and Eating Disorders

Body image struggles affect us more than we realise. This social problem has many silently feeling inadequate, developing an unhealthy relationship with food, fitness and their bodies, and falling prey to eating disorders. What are some of the common eating disorders? How do you recognise them in yourself and in others? And how can you show care and compassion towards those who might be struggling? Rock The Naked Truth founder Cheryl Tay will share her personal experiences with overcoming eating disorders, alongside clinical psychologist Cissy Li, who specialises in eating disorders.

Date: 26 April 2017 (Wednesday)
Time: 7pm
Venue: AWARE Centre (Block 5 Dover Crescent #01-22)

About the speakers

Sports and fitness personality Cheryl Tay suffered from eating disorders, self-esteem issues and self-harm for over a decade. Eventually, Cheryl found her confidence through fitness, and created Rock The Naked Truth, a body positivity movement, to reach out to others with similar struggles.

Cissy Li is a New Zealand Registered Clinical Psychologist. Before moving to private practice in Singapore, she was employed in a specialist eating disorders clinic where she worked alongside adolescents, adults and their families to overcome eating disorders such as Anorexia and Bulimia.

REGISTER HERE