Dr Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim, Senior Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Education and
Ministry of Social and Family Development,
Mr Michael Gray, President of PAVE,
Colleagues, Friends
1. Good afternoon. I’m delighted to be here today to launch A Day with Bob.
2. I’m sure all of you have a copy of the book with you. Just go ahead and flip through it. I’ve looked
at it before, it’s very interesting, it’s got stickers. It’s very meaningful, entertaining, and
hopefully helpful, for our students.
3. So A Day with Bob is an educational pictorial book about Bob. Now who is Bob? He is a young boy who sees
his father beat up his mother regularly. Bob confronts very difficult and very real questions. Should he report or
stay silent? Is this a private matter? Will his actions cause his family to break up? What should he do? These are
very difficult matters for a young boy. So we have a pictorial book. We hope it’ll be helpful to him.
4. The book carries a very important and powerful message to children who may be victims: that they need not be
ashamed; that they should seek help; and that they should never suffer in silence. Just as important – it also
tells children that they should help look out for friends who may be suffering from family violence, and how they
can seek help. Family violence is a very sensitive topic, and this book seeks to help introduce the concept to
children in an accessible way.
5. PAVE and Police, led by Ang Mo Kio Police Division, have worked together over several months to produce this. They
will be working with MOE to distribute 25,000 copies of the book to primary schools in the North Zone, and they will
explore expanding the book distribution to all primary schools in Singapore.
6. This book may be a small initiative, but it demonstrates what the Government and social
service agencies can achieve when they work closely together. At this point, I would like to acknowledge the good
work PAVE has done over the years to combat family violence. It has worked closely and effectively with Government
agencies, not only on individual cases but in providing feedback on policy or legislative gaps.
7. I will now like to talk about our current efforts to address family violence.
8. Family violence destroys lives. Every year, there are about 2,000 reports made to the
Police for offences such as hurt, criminal force and assault that involved family members, and over 2,400
applications for Personal Protection Orders to the Family Justice Courts. And these are just the reported cases from
those who have had the courage to step forward.
9. Research shows that there is a vicious inter-generational cycle of family violence:
children who witness their fathers beating up their mothers are ten times more likely to abuse their future spouses.
It is therefore crucial that we take steps to break this cycle. Each case is one too many. No one should fear going
home.
10. The Government has been working hand-in-hand with the community to combat this scourge.
We have taken a three-pronged approach:
a) First, giving victims legal recourse and social support
services. We regularly review our laws to ensure sufficient deterrence against perpetrators and protection for
victims. The Women’s Charter and the Protection from Harassment Act, for instance, provide for Personal
Protection Orders and Expedited Orders to stop perpetrators from abusing their victims. We recently revised the
Penal Code and the Children and Young Persons Act to increase penalties for offences committed against vulnerable
victims for better deterrence. There is also an entire ecosystem of social support services – from Family
Service Centres and Family Violence Specialist Centres, to crisis shelters. Police, hospitals and clinics work
closely with MSF and social service agencies to render help to victims.
b) Second, raising public awareness. Everyone
has a role to play in helping to detect, intervene, and report possible family violence incidents. Over the last
three years, MSF has been carrying out a campaign, Break the Silence against Family Violence. This is to
encourage bystanders to step up to stop family violence. The campaign included TV commercials as well as social
media and community engagements and training. MSF is also collaborating with MOE to equip older teens with the
ability to intervene when they encounter violence. The pictorial book that we see in front of us today will
contribute to our broader efforts to raise public awareness.
c) Lastly, fostering greater collaboration
and coordination among Government agencies and community partners to help victims. We recognise that family violence
is not simply a criminal justice issue, but a problem that requires everyone to step forward. Hence, we set up the
National Family Violence Networking System to bring together many Government agencies and community partners for
better coordination of family violence cases. Victims can go to any party – and they will be referred to the
appropriate agencies to get the help they need.
11. These initiatives have borne some fruit, and we have seen a slight drop in the number of
PPO applications over the last few years.
12. But from the cases we have seen and the ground feedback received, we absolutely can do
more. For instance, family violence cases appear to be increasingly more violent in nature. From 2016 to 2019,
victims have reported more acts of violence committed against them in their PPO applications. We also see egregious
cases from time to time – including acts of violence committed in public. There was a case in August 2018
where a man severely assaulted his wife at Pending LRT station, in front of their crying children. He pushed her to
the wall and punched her repeatedly in the face. When she fell to the ground and fainted, he continued to kick her
face and stomp on her head, until her face started to swell and bleed. How terrible. I was absolutely horrified when
I read about it. The two young children, who were six and seven years old, were crying and shouting for their father
to stop. The assault only ended when passers-by intervened and helped the woman. The man has since pleaded guilty to
causing grievous hurt, and of breaching a PPO.
New Inter-Agency Task Force
13. It is clear that we will need to do more together – be it lowering barriers to
seeking help, or further strengthening coordination, both within Government and with our community partners, to
ensure that our collective efforts are more effective.
14. To do this, MHA and MSF will set up a new inter-agency task force to tackle family
violence. This task force will be co-chaired by myself and MSF’s Senior Parliamentary Secretary Faishal. There
is already strong coordination at the operational level between the Government, the courts, and social service
agencies under the National Family Violence Networking System. The new task force will identify areas where we can
do better, strengthen existing initiatives that work, and come up with fresh ideas.
15. I would now like to share some new ideas that this new task force will be exploring in
the coming months.
Expansion of Home Team CARES
16. First, the task force will look into providing better support for victims when they
report family violence cases. One touchpoint where support can be better rendered is when victims go to the Police.
Today, when victims go to a Police station, Police officers attend to them and refer them to a social service agency
where necessary. Although Police officers are trained to handle victims sensitively and do their best to help, they
are not social workers and cannot provide immediate social service support.
17. We will thus explore the feasibility of extending the Home Team Community Assistance and
Referral Scheme (or Home Team CARES) to family violence victims. Home Team CARES was piloted in January 2019 whereby
social workers are situated at Bedok Police Division, to provide first-response triaging and referral of offenders
in need of social support to social service agencies. The intent was to address underlying social issues that led to
crime. The pilot has been successful, and Police are looking to extend this to all Divisions. We think that there is
potential for family violence victims to benefit from having similar access to social assistance. This means that in
future, when Police investigate a family violence case, Home Team CARES officers will also support the victims in
such cases, and triage and refer them to appropriate agencies for help. We hope to be able to do this, and roll it
out to all Divisions, by the end of this year.
Dedicated national anti-violence hotline
18. Next, MSF is working with partner agencies to explore setting up a one-stop, dedicated
national hotline against abuse and violence. Victims, members of the public, and professionals will be able to call
this line for all kinds of abuse and violence, making it easier and simpler for victims to seek and receive help.
The task force will provide guidance on the design of this helpline.
Collaboration with the people and private sector
19. Third, the task force will look into ways in which the Government can strengthen our
partnership and work with NGOs and the private sector. Preliminarily, we think there are two potential areas worth
exploring.
20. The first area is in public education. There are still parts of society that we can do
more to reach out to, such as private sector companies. NGOs, such as United Women Singapore, can potentially be our
partners in encouraging employers to better identify and support employees who may be experiencing family violence.
21. The second area is in family violence research. The task force will look into potential
studies that we can conduct together with United Women Singapore and other NGO partners to, for example, better
understand the different archetypes of family violence victims.With better research and understanding of the issue,
our interventions can be more targeted, and more effective.
Closer coordination within the Government to raise awareness of family violence
22. The task force will also aim to tighten coordination within Government so that each
agency can better complement and support one another’s work. Our aim is to create a multiplier effect –
that will better harness capabilities across Government. For instance, MHA and MSF can work together to extend the
reach of public awareness efforts - for example, small steps like sharing MSF’s content on MHA’s social
media platforms are a useful start.
Conclusion
23. In conclusion, combating family violence is a long term effort, with no quick and easy
fixes. This is why the task force will look far and wide for new ideas and new partnerships that can improve how we
respond as a society. Family violence cannot be condoned, even if it happens in private and some may feel is a
family matter. Our goal is to work towards a Singapore where everyone has a safe and loving home to go home to.
Together, we can break the silence, and stop the violence.
