This post was originally published as a press release on 29 July 2021.

29 July 2021 – Implement comprehensive sexuality education covering consent, violence and gender roles in all schools in Singapore. Place a legal obligation on employers to address workplace harassment. Impose a temporary, progressive gender quota on boards of publicly listed companies. Introduce a support grant for family caregivers and review care policies to be gender-neutral. Establish a Code of Practice that sets out the minimum standards of service and support to victim-survivors of sexual violence, to counter current inconsistencies in their experiences.

These are some of the proposals made by gender-equality group AWARE in a comprehensive 242-page omnibus report, titled “An Omnibus on Gender Equality”, released today. A culmination of 36 years of gender research and advocacy, the report brings together 88 of AWARE’s recommendations on issues faced by women over their life course, from youth to employment, motherhood, caregiving and retirement. It forms the second part of the organisation’s two-pronged output towards the government’s 2021 review of gender equality—the first being a series of policy wishlists generated by various communities brought together by AWARE, published earlier this month.

“Home Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam said last September that gender equality should be ‘imprinted deeply into our collective consciousness’, so that every child in Singapore will grow up imbibing it,” said AWARE Executive Director Corinna Lim. “We could not agree more. This omnibus report is the fullest picture to date of the state of gender equality in Singapore: both a snapshot of the current landscape, and a roadmap for societal progress. Following this blueprint for policy change and public education will, we believe, lead to the fundamental mindset shift that both AWARE and the government are seeking.”

Issues tackled in the omnibus report are: (i) women, work and care, including the gender pay gap and female representation in the labour market; (ii) supporting older women, including ageing women’s retirement adequacy; (iii) gender-based and other forms of discrimination, including discrimination against pregnant women, single parents, disabled women, domestic workers, LGBTQ+ persons and Muslim women; (iv) violence against women, including campus sexual violence, workplace sexual violence and technology-facilitated sexual violence; (v) sexuality education; (vi) men and gender equality: (vii) national machinery to promote gender equality, such as the pledge and Constitution; (viii) the Women’s Charter and (ix) procedural issues in reporting sexual violence.

The arguments and policy recommendations are based on primary research data, the experiences of AWARE’s Women’s Care Centre and Sexual Assault Care Centre supporting vulnerable women, extensive secondary policy research and consultations with stakeholders such as academics, policymakers and other community organisations. The organisations HOME, Disabled People’s Association and Project X contributed respectively to sections on migrant domestic workers, disabled women and violence against sex workers.

“The report takes an expressly inclusive and intersectional approach, recognising that different marginalised women face different overlapping barriers,” said Ms Lim. “By the same token, we urge the government to immediately review all laws for gender neutrality. They should also conduct a thorough review of masculine norms that, when reinforced by such institutions as National Service and the media, place undue pressure on men.”

Besides the aforementioned proposals, AWARE reiterated its recommendations to update Singapore’s 60-year-old Women’s Charter, including changing its name to “Family Charter” to reflect the gender neutrality of its family law and anti-violence provisions. For migrant spouses, AWARE recommended that Long-Term Visit Passes be done away with and all qualifying migrant spouses of citizens be placed on the Long-Term Visit Pass Plus, which offers greater security, subsidies and work eligibility.

On the issue of sexual violence, AWARE suggested allowing all victim-survivors to undergo forensic medical examination, regardless of whether they file a police report. AWARE also suggested mandating that social media platforms remove non-consensually distributed materials within 24 hours after receiving a court order to do so. This would help slow down the spread of such materials online.

“With this national review, the government has set the stage for change on a grand scale,” said Ms Lim. “We hope that they will seriously consider these proposals in their White Paper and accelerate Singapore towards a future free of discrimination, violence and other forms of oppression. We want generations of women to look back at 2021 as a pivotal year for gender in this country.”

Read the “An Omnibus on Gender Equality” report here, and executive summary here.

Pages 28 and 35 of this report were updated on 29 July 2021.