The winners of the inaugural AWARE Awards, Singapore’s first gender equality award, and the Alamak! Award, Singapore’s first sexism award, were announced at AWARE’s fundraising gala, the Big Ball 2011, held on October 17 at the Grand Hyatt hotel.

The AWARE Heroine: Madam Halimah Yacob

As Director of NTUC’s Women’s Development Secretariat, Madam Halimah’s leadership was crucial to providing support for single mothers, lower-income women seeking employment, women rejoining the work force and women seeking leadership in various unions.

As a Member of Parliament, she has been passionate about raising issues that improve the lives of women, including anti-discrimination measures for pregnant female employees, protecting the rights of domestic workers, as well as protection against sexual harassment.

The AWARE Hero: Mr Benny Bong

Mr Bong is known for his work in the prevention of family violence and violence against women, especially in counselling male perpetrators of violence. He has made a significant contribution to dealing with gender violence at all levels, including policy, research, advocacy and training.

He advocated for criminalising marital rape and has been instrumental in initiating training programmes for police officers on family violence dynamics. He was also the joint organiser of the International Violence Against Women Survey in Singapore in 2009, for which 2006 women were interviewed to find out the prevalence of violence against women in Singapore compared to other countries.

The AWARE Young Wonders: Ms Jolene Tan and Ms Wong Pei Chi

The Young Wonder award was given jointly to Ms Tan and Ms Wong for their work in organizing the No To Rape campaign, which continues today. Raping one’s wife is still not considered rape under Singapore law, and these young women, along with other members of the No To Rape team, have been working to change this since 2009 through initiatives such as petitions, public education campaigns and discussions with the media, Members of Parliament and community leaders.

The Alamak! Award: Obedient Wives Club Singapore

The initial front-runner was Mr Desmond Choo when public voting for this award first commenced on Sept 20. Voting was extended from Oct 7 to Oct 15 due to popular demand, and by the time the 4 weeks of voting was over, Mr Choo ended up with the least number of votes.

Instead, the very first Alamak! Award goes to the Obedient Wives Club, which garnered 4,046 out of the total of 12,586 votes cast.

There were a total of 5,404 voters. Each person was allowed to vote for up to three nominees.

Mr Choo received 821 votes. The Singapore Armed Forces’ “Our Army, My Boyfriend” ad received 1,970 votes. Great Eastern’s “It’s Great To Be A Woman” campaign received 2,719 votes. The Singapore Airlines’ employment policies received 3,030 votes.

ABOUT THE AWARDS

Created this year to mark AWARE’s 26th anniversary, the AWARE Awards celebrates men and women who have broken through gender barriers and helped to nurture a culture of gender equality in Singapore.

There are three categories for the AWARE Awards: The AWARE Heroine, the AWARE Hero, and the AWARE Young Wonder (for an individual under 30 years of age).

The winners were chosen by a panel of judges, comprising AWARE board member and education entrepreneur Lindy Ong, playwright Eleanor Wong, journalist Ong Soh Chin, academic Philip Holden and ambassador-at-large Professor Tommy Koh.

The Alamak! Award was created to highlight instances of sexism in Singapore. Nominations were submitted by members of the public as well as AWARE members, and were closed on August 31. The winner was selected via online voting over a period of 4 weeks.