Monday, November 23rd, 2009
A letter by Associate Professor Chan Wing Cheong (who previously kindly spoke at the No To Rape seminar) has been published in the Straits Times Forum. It makes reference to the situation of wives under the age of 16:
The present law is inconsistent in that consensual sex with a girl under the age of 16 is a serious offence under the Penal Code, punishable with imprisonment of up to 10 years and/or a fine, but it is not a criminal offence for a man to have sex with his wife who is at least 13 years old.
If we are concerned about the emotional and physical well-being of young girls engaging in sex, it cannot be right to allow men to have sex with their wives between the ages of 13 and 16, just because they are married to each other. The marriage will most likely have taken place with a foreigner overseas, where marriages with young brides are allowed.
Currently, Section 376A makes it an offence to have sex with any person under the age of 16, whether or not the minor expresses consent. Associate Professor Chan’s letter appears to question the retention of two separate exempions:
(1) Section 376A(4), which grants immunity from this offence when a girl under the age of 16 says “yes” to sex with her husband.
(2) Section 376A(5), which grants immunity from this offence, even in situations where a 13-, 14- or 15-year-old girl has said “no” to her husband.
The current No To Rape petition calls for the complete removal of Section 376A(5). (This is in no way an endorsement of Section 376A(4), which may also require further review.) If you believe that a man should not be able to force an unwilling 13-, 14- or 15-year old wife to have sex, please sign it today, and help to spread the word.
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Sunday, November 8th, 2009
Our sincere thanks to the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development for kindly featuring No To Rape on their website. This is a membership-based regional human rights organisation in Asia. Presently it has 46 member organisations across Asia, with 46 member organisations from a range of Asian countries including Bangladesh, Thailand, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Taiwan and more.
We are also grateful for the link from AWARE’s White Ribbon Campaign, a movement of men who pledge to never commit, condone or stay silent about violence against women and girls.
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Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
Many thanks to the folks at Syinc for mentioning No To Rape on their SEACHANGE Blog. Syinc is an exciting movement working to empower youths to create social change, and it is very kind of them to link to us.
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Friday, October 23rd, 2009
No To Rape is pleased to announce that our third film ad will be launched on 31 October, at ‘whose Right is it anyway?’, a human rights workshop for youth.
The United Nations Youth Association of Singapore (UNYAS) and our kind organisational endorsers MARUAH (Singapore working group for a human rights mechanism) will be holding a full-day workshop for those who are young and interested in finding out what human rights are about.
Date: 31 October
Time: 09 00 h
Venue: Singapore Management University School of Business Seminar room 2.5
For more details and to register, visit their website.
No To Rape is very grateful to MARUAH and UNYAS for allowing us to screen our film ad at their event. Those of you who can’t make it will be able to catch it here on the No To Rape blog, of course: watch this space for updates.
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Wednesday, October 21st, 2009
Blogger Terence Lee, who calls himself a “skeptical Christian”, has written about about the extent of support for No To Rape from the Christian community. We’re very grateful to Terence for highlighting our campaign, and would like to address the issue he has raised, by speaking of our efforts to develop a relationship with all religious communities in Singapore.
No To Rape includes individuals who subscribe to a variety of religious beliefs, as well as some who have no religion at all. Our belief is that people from all traditions and faiths have a shared interest in addressing sexual violence within marriage. Everyone in multi-cultural and multi-religious Singapore has a shared interest in fair, humane laws that ensure the protection of all people against assault. No To Rape aims to further that shared interest.
We know that for many people, marital relationships are a deeply spiritual matter intimately tied to the ethical teachings and guidance of their religious communities. For this reason, we have sought to engage religious communities, and have been hard at work contacting a variety of religious authorities to seek their contributions and opinions on the subject.
To date, many have responded positively: see [1], [2], [3], [4] (it is not mentioned in that entry, but Mr Blakely is a marriage counsellor with Wesley Methodist Church) and [5] for some of the messages we have received. There are others, in confidential correspondence, that we cannot currently disclose. It’s also worth noting the guidance of the Christian churches in the Bahamas, where the government is working on legislative changes similar to those we propose.
No To Rape is very conscious of the need to improve this dialogue, which is after all an ongoing process. Our ability to do so, however, is only as good as the connections we manage to form – which in turn is reliant on the goodwill of those who believe in what we stand for. We seek help from you, the public, to more effectively engage the varied traditions which go into the ethical and social space in which Singaporeans live.
If you support the abolition of marital immunity for rape and are able to help us better engage and communicate with leading members in your faith community, please let us know.
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Friday, October 16th, 2009
No To Rape is grateful for the kind words of encouragement we have received from Trinity Theological College, which we reproduce here:
Thank you for keeping us posted on the “No to Rape” campaign. We applaud your efforts at raising public attention to marital rape in our nation, and wish you well in your campaign. Rape is utterly reprehensible whether in marriage or outside of it, and we support, in principle, any attempt that might safeguard the welfare of the vulnerable and place legal restraint on those who perpetrate sexual violence.
The deep respect that Christianity has for the God-given dignity of every single human person, the high esteem that the Church accords the institution of marriage, and the Bible’s condemnation of injustice and oppressive violence are part and parcel of the Christian moral response to issues of sexual violence.
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Tuesday, October 6th, 2009
No To Rape is grateful to Father Erbin Fernandez of the Church of St Vincent de Paul for sharing with us his thoughts on, and words of support for, our campaign:
I applaud your efforts in addressing this issue. You have my prayers and support. The Church has always upheld human dignity because it understand that such a dignity flows from the fact that each person regardless of religious affiliation has a heart that yearns for a true happiness and love. That yearning is of a transcendent origin and the human heart will not rest till it finds it….
May your endeavors protect the human heart from violence and help it to take a correct position before reality that is full of hope. We pray for both the victim as well as the perpetrators of such acts of violence. I believe the latter is also a sick person in need of help, I believe many of them to be sex addicts who have turned violent in their need to quell the storm within them…
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Monday, September 28th, 2009
Thank you to the more than 2,600 who have put their names to our petition, including celebrated poet Lee Tzu Pheng. Signatory Jean Goh observes:
I have heard of friends who have been through many bouts of non-consensual sex with their husband and it was not pleasant for them at all. I believe that this is not to be taken lightly because these victims have nowhere to go for help, especially since the ones harming them are the same ones who have vowed before God to protect them and treat them well. I’ve heard that sex keeps the love alive in marriage, but I don’t think it even works if the man disregards the thoughts and feelings of his wife.
In the week since it was launched, our latest film ad has been watched more than 1,400 times on YouTube. Please continue to spread the word, to help our videos and the campaign reach an even wider audience.
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Monday, September 14th, 2009
The Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE), which endorses No To Rape, has very kindly published a short opinion piece on marital immunity for rape penned by Jolene Tan, a core member of the No To Rape team. Do check it out!
p.s. Don’t forget to tune in to Channel News Asia today, at 8.30pm, to catch an episode of Get Rea! focusing on marital rape. If you can’t make it, don’t fret – there will be repeat broadcasts later this week.
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Saturday, September 12th, 2009
No To Rape is pleased to note that David Blakely, marriage counsellor and President of the Singapore Association for Counselling, has signed the Petition, with the following statement:
As a marriage counsellor living in Singapore for the past 14 years, in my voluntary role as the President of the Singapore Association for Counselling, and as a father to two teenage daughters I believe it is important for us to give full legal protection by eliminating any and all immunities to the charge of marital rape. I’m confident that our justice system has the appropriate structures to prevent abuse of such a change.
We are very grateful for this kind support for the total abolition of marital immunity for rape.
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