(Campaign Actions are suggestions we make every fortnight for steps you can take – in addition to spreading the No To Rape message online – to help the effort for change. Previous Campaign Actions: [1], [2] and [3].)

The current No To Rape Campaign Action is:

Tell a New Person Each Day. It’s that simple. Every day for the next two weeks, mention the No To Rape campaign and website to one person you haven’t spoken about it to before.

You can use the leaflets provided in the Promote section to help you respond to any questions or to get the conversation going.

We are working hard to spread the word to as many people as we can, but we can’t do this without you. Please act to create a society which takes sexual violence seriously, no matter what its form may be.

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(Campaign Actions are suggestions we make every fortnight for steps you can take – in addition to spreading the No To Rape message online – to help the effort for change. Previous Campaign Actions: [1] and [2].)

The current No To Rape Campaign Action is:

Put up our poster. You can find a simple, black-and-white A4-sized poster in the Resources column of the Promote section of our website. Print it out on ordinary paper and put it up on the notice boards of places you go to – like your office, your campus or your place of worship. Get permission from your favourite shop or eating place to put it up there too!

Please send us an email at NoToRape@gmail.com to let us know where you put the posters up – preferably with a picture if you can take one! We’d also love to hear about it if you took part in last fortnight’s Campaign Action.

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Remember our Campaign Actions? Every fortnight, we post a new suggestion for something you can do to be even more effective at promoting the No To Rape message. Two weeks ago we asked you to write to your MP.

The current No To Rape Campaign Action is:

Write to the press. We suggest writing to any publication you read regularly, whether it’s a newspaper like The Straits Times, Today, Lianhe Zaobao, Berita Harian, Tamil Murasu, or The Business Times; or a magazine; or a newsletter for your school or workplace or club or association.

Tell them that you think marital immunity for rape should be abolished, and why.

Your letter will have more impact if you use your own words. Feel free to use the FAQ the Resources in the Promote section for information or ideas.

If you’re not sure what to say, here are a few possibilities:

- At the moment, except in limited circumstances, a man who forces sex upon his wife cannot be charged for rape. This is wrong and should change because rape is violence, and spousal violence is not acceptable.

- In August is the 10th anniversary of the hearing for PP v N, a case where a man tied his wife up, gagged her and forced intercourse upon her. He could not be charged for rape. A decade later, even with changes to the law in 2007, the result would be the same.

- Marital rape happens. Signatories on the No To Rape petition have spoken of their personal experiences as victims, or their work with victims.

- Are you of a particular faith? Mention that marital immunity for rape is not supported by your religious values.

- Marital immunity does not apply to non-consensual anal or oral sex, so the police and the law are prepared to investigate non-consent in the context of marriage. They should do so in relation to all forms of sexual violence.

Please send us your letters too, and let us know if you have responses. The more we share, the more effective we’ll be.

Thank you for promoting humane standards of treatment for women in Singapore.

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As No To Rape enters its third week, more than 800 people have signed the petition to show their support for the abolition of marital immunity for rape. With your help in spreading the message, that number continues to grow.

But there is even more we can do to create change. Every two weeks, we’ll post a Campaign Action you can take to be even more effective at promoting the No To Rape message.

The current No To Rape Campaign Action is:

Write to your MP: Please write directly to your Member of Parliament and tell them that you think forced sex should always be treated as rape.

Confused about how to do this? Check out the Promote section of the site. You’ll find a link to the Parliament website, where you can get snail mail or email details for your MP by entering your street name.

You can also access our Model Letter to an MP – feel free to use this as it is, or as a source of ideas. Your letter will probably have more impact if it is in your own words.

The more letters MPs receive, from as many different people as possible, the clearer it will be to them that Singaporeans and PRs do not support marital immunity for rape.

Please let us know at NoToRape@gmail.com if you receive any responses from your MP. The more knowledge we share, the more effectively we can work.

Thank you once again for your stand against sexual violence.

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The Petition is the core of this campaign, but we seek to equip everyone with additional tools to take a stand against sexual violence within marriage. Don’t forget to sign up to our mailer (you can do so here) to receive regular updates on other actions you can take to end marital immunity for rape.

For now, thank you for spreading the word – we’ve seen many of you hard at work on emails, Facebook, Twitter, and blogs, and it’s making a huge difference.

Besides online sharing, you can take offline action too. The Promote section of our website contains all kinds of tools to help you spread the word – including ready-made leaflets in poster and flyer sizes, and an Activist Toolkit containing suggestions and resources for creating change.

We’ve also updated the Promote section to include news articles on marital immunity for rape, correspondence with MPs and the civil service on the subject, and links to blogs who’ve been kind enough to share the No To Rape message – some of them have added really powerful thoughts of their own. Do check it out.

p.s. Don’t forget that the Petition comes in Bahasa Melayu and Chinese translations so you can share the word with those who aren’t as comfortable with English! We are working on a Tamil translation too and will let you know when that’s ready.

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