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AWARE’s participation in the 38th Universal Periodic Review Pre-session
March 29th, 2021 | Family and Divorce, Gender-based Violence, Migration and Trafficking, News
Together with 10 other civil society organisations, AWARE submitted a joint report to the Human Rights Council in October 2020. The report covered a wide range of human rights issues in Singapore. In the area of women’s rights, issues raised included the persistence of the gender wage gap; violence against women; discrimination against Muslim women and migrant women.
We then made an oral presentation at the 38th Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Pre-session held on 25 March 2021. The Pre-session offers civil society groups a platform to directly advocate to state delegations ahead of the UPR session; state delegations can ask civil society representatives clarifying questions.
Singapore’s Pre-session opened with a statement by Mr Umej Bhatia, Singapore’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office in Geneva. The statement laid out Singapore’s general approach to human rights, with an emphasis on creating “careful balance” between respect for “individual rights” and “social harmony” because of Singapore’s “unique” circumstances.
AWARE’s statement focused on two issues: first, the under-reporting of sexual violence, and second, the vulnerability of migrant women to family violence. To address the former, we called on the government of Singapore to establish specialised courts to deal with sexual violence cases, and commit resources to support efforts in eradicating rape myths. To better protect migrant spouses, we recommended that they be granted the right to seek another sponsor or be able to self-sponsor their right to reside in Singapore, in the case of spousal abuse.
Representatives from Community Action Network, Disabled People’s Association, Oogachaga, TWC2 and Amnesty International also delivered a statement focusing on their respective areas of concern.
Singapore’s UPR is scheduled for 12 May 2021, during the 38th session of the UPR Working Group. We hope that the recommendations raised at this Pre-session, as well as in other civil society submissions, will be reflected in the final list of recommendations made to the Government.