This is a very amatuerish, armchair attempt to explain sociologically, why it was OK for 13 yr olds to be married in the past, but no longer.  It’s just an attempt/exercise on my part to make sense of this world, not something to be taken as fact, but certainly something which might be interesting to discuss, IMO.

Then, in the past…..

When you’ve only 30-40 years to live,  it didn’t make sense to be marrying and having kids in your 30s. You’ll just make orphans of all of them. So you had kids the moment you reached puberty, at 12 , 13, 14…….   So that by 30, you’ll have your first grandchild. I think one of the reasons why humans have been so successful evolutionarily, was because grandparents play a very important role in the nuturing of young.  It frees up the parents to go to work & get more resources for the family.

Yep, it frees BOTH parents to work. Now this whole idea that women didn’t use to work, and it was only the in the 20th century with feminism that women started working is something I don’t think is true. At least for the majority of people throughout history; I’m not talking about the rich kings and lords and their tai tai wives.

The division of labour might have been different, but women worked nevertheless. A farmer husband might do the heavier farm work, but women planted, harvested, processed the food. Grandparents were important to take care of the kids while women did that. A fishman husband might go out to see, but women stayed home to mend the nets and process the fish. That was work too.

And so, because 3 generations alive seems to be our magic formula as the human species, and because people lived till 30 – 40 yrs old, marriage at 12 – 15 was quite essential. It’s the equavalent of us being married at 25 – 40 today.

However, because humans still matured a nearly the same age — ie. just because we live till 80 does not mean than puperty hits at 30 —- the 12 years olds of today have the same level of maturity as the 12 years olds of the past. 12 years olds don’t have the capacity to decide and make lifelong plans — not now, not then.

Thus in the past, it was the responsibility of good 30 year old parents, to make the decision on behalf of their 12 – 15 yr old child getting married.

Now, at present…….

That’s all changed today. Humans really have evolved. As a species, we are today, far more capable than we were yesterday.

Medical advancement, environmental and economic progress means that we can now live until 80.

But in order to do so, we need to spend more time educating ourselves, and we often do so until we are in our 20s. 

In our 20s, we are able to decide who we want to marry, and so we ought to do so.

In our teens, being out of school, or being married or having children lowers our chances of having a better life in future.

It becomes irresponsible for society and parents to allow/encourage a teen to compromise his/her future.

In summary, these were the options, then and now:

Then:

- marry & have kids at 30,
die at  30 – 40, leaving your kids orphaned.

- marry & have kids at 13, without your parent’s advice/arrangement,
have a greater chance of making a bad choice?

- marry & have kids at 13, arranged by your parents. I
t was common in those days to attribute a poor/good marriage to the efforts of the parents.

Now:

- marry & have kids at 30,
give your kids a better chance at life because you have spent the years better educating yourself and establishing a career. You have another 50 yrs with your kid and grandkids

- marry & have kids at 13, without your parent’s advice/arrangement.
You screw up your life and your kids, because you’ll be less educated than most of your peers, and less financially able. You put the health of you and your child at risk, because medical costs/advancement today has made it healthier to have children at 30 than at 13. 

- marry & have kids at 13, arranged by your parents.
Either your parents have set you on the path described above, which is a clear cut case of irresponsible parenthood & child abuse,
Or, your parents continue to provide you with education & financial support. But that means that while your peers can decide who they want to marry and what life you want to lead, those choices have been denied to you.

On “cultural” / “geographical” diversity

Then

- No place in the world had the level of medical etc advancement that is available today.  They had no alternatives systems

Now

- It’s true that in some parts of the world, they marry their children off young, because their life expectancy is still 30 – 40 yrs old

- But that’s not reason to continue anymore. Because better systems are available in other parts of the world. It is the duty of more advanced socieites to help these societies in need, and the duty of the leaders of societies in need to be open to that process.  To do otherwise, would be to keep your society’s life expectancy at 30-40, when it is medically possible to now be 70-80.

No society would want you to “respect” their culture by not helping them get rid of practices that keep their life expectancy at 40.

Moving forward……

We need to remember that the world did not progress to the state we are in today, all at the same pace. In Singapore, we progressed to our life expectancy of 76yrs old, not by insisting that our traditional practices of denying women education and marrying children off at 13 be respected. We looked, we learned, they saw, they helped, we progressed.

And it’s not time to pat ourselves and say “hey good job, well done”.

We need to keep progressing, ask ourselves where are areas we can improve, and keep moving. And let’s help others while we’re doing so.

I am in a Freedom-of-Expression dilema. When you learn that your insurance agent supports the rape of females, in particular 13-yr old females, should you allow him to carry on profiting from your existing policies or request an agent change? Even tho’ he’s been professional in his insr agt services?

http://wherebearsroamfree.blogspot.com/2009/11/agenda-of-notorapers-exposed-followed.html

See comments there.

I posed this question to some of my friends, and here is the conversation. I have decided to pose it publically here, in response to the last suggestion.

Person 1

Person 2

Supporting the rape of others is not freedom of expression. I say you dump him!

Mathialee:

Person 3:

I chanced upon this : Time management: How an MIT postdoc writes 3 books, a PhD defense, and 6+ peer-reviewed papers — and finishes by 5:30pm

http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/time-management-how-an-mit-postdoc-writes-3-books-a-phd-defense-and-6-peer-reviewed-papers-and-finishes-by-530pm/

As I read it , i was pretty impressed with his achievements, until I came to this paragraph

Fix your ideal schedule, then work backwards to make everything fit — ruthlessly culling obligations, turning people down, becoming hard to reach, and shedding marginally useful tasks along the way.

The thought that immediately came to me was, This guy does it by being an asshole!!!  I just can’t respect him at all, and all his achievements don’t mean a thing anymore. I mean, just imagine, you’re dead, and on your epitaph are the words “XXX, Ph.D, bestselling author, billionaire. He ruthlessly culled obligations, turned people down, became hard to reach, and did nothing that didn’t contribute to his own success”

I’ll rather someone who can write on his epitaph “He never quite made his mortgage in the end, but, my God, did he make good friends!”
I’ll be so privilledged to be counted as one of his good friends. 

———————————————————————————————-

I write this with a particular person in mind; a person I’m so privilledged to be counted as one of his good friends.
He taught me what dignity, vulnerability and friendship is. (not are, but is)

I was discussing capital punishment with someone, and he couldn’t quite see how I could support capital punishment as a Christian (and I suspect, as a liberal too). This was the context of the discusion: whether Pol Pot’s gang should be forgiven/ given the captial punishment, since they seemed remorseful http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8377853.stm

My take is this :

Why wouldn’t Christ approve of Capital punishment?? He used that to save the world.

I think the whole thing about the Christian love and forgiveness has totally been misinterpreted and misapplied.

See if I hit you, and you said to me, ‘I forgive you’, that would be very gracious and noble on your part.

But if I hit you, and you went to the police, and the police then said to me “we forgive you” instead of arresting me, that would be far from gracious and noble. That would be gross injustice.

And I think that’s the whole point of Christianity.

The Old testament is in line with our natural sense of justice, echoed through many cultures (don’t think about Christian Europe, that’s really quite an exception) where crimes are punished according to their severity, and hence certain crimes call for death.  Establishing WHICH crimes call for death is the sticky part.

The New Testament says this : This is justice, this is the law — unfeeling, strict and cold. But as beings (human, god), we can rise above that, and love and forgive.

So the practical application would be, in the administering of justice and the law , it has to be unfeeling, strict, cold. You intentionally murder when it was in your power to choose otherwise, you pay with your life.  But as humans, we can forgive. And so we can form a genuine friendship with people who’ve done us wrong, or people who are on deathrow , in prison etc.

Think I can be a pastor????? Hehehehhe.

I have to make a qualifier. I do not think that people who were forced by circumstance, or stupidity to be drug runners should be hung. I think that drug lords who hire drug runners and are chummy with corrupt politicians should be hung.  I don’t think that psychotic people who killed someone ought to be hung, I think the hitlers and saddams and pol pots ought to be hung. I acknowledge that deciphering which category a person on trial belongs to, is a very tough job.

I’m also very skeptical about this whole idea of factoring the extent of remorse into sentencing.

How do you differentiate between true remorse, and someone who is acting remorseful to get off lightly? A person who has psychotic problems and is less able to manage his emotions and actions may show significantly less remorse than a politician who schemed and manipulated his way up the power echelons, intentionally planned genocide, but who is then scheming enough to act remorseful when on trial.

Hey, this very meaningful website found me & I didn’t think I should keep it to myself!

http://sglead.wordpress.com/about/    (Contents below are not mine; cut-and-paste from their site. Go check out their blog too! )

sgLEAD is “A volunteer network for librarians, individuals and organisations interested in providing reading, learning and library services to people with disabilities in Singapore.”

singapore
Librarians for
Empowerment &
Advocacy for the
Disabled

Discussion Group http://sglead.wordpress.com/discussion-group/

I’m particularly concerned about rape cases that happen to boys/men.

Most of the rape of men cases that go reported are committed by strangers/”hostile” people.

However, we know that 90% of female rape cases are committed by trusted family/friends, and that these tend to be the unreported ones.

I suspect that an even greater proportion of male rape cases also get committed by trusted friends/family, and that societal pressures & biased laws mean that the under reporting of male rape cases & lack of support is worse.

http://news.asiaone.com/News/The%2BNew%2BPaper/Story/A1Story20090518-142150.html –Sex monster looks for ‘easy targets’ in library

In this article, the victim was a male child and it was reported because the mother was observant. Also, the perpertrator is a male stranger. I’m wondering (wondering, because no stats) what if it’s a 14 yr old boy and the perpertrator is a 29 yr old male good buddy? Would that be reported?

Of great concern too, the confession:  

“HE WAS arrested for performing oral sex on a 6-year-old boy in a library toilet. After Chan Kok Weng, 29, was charged for the offence, he was sent for a psychiatric assessment. And that was when he made an explosive confession – he had been preying on young boys for about 15 years. Chan told Dr Stephen Phang, senior consultant psychiatrist at the Institute of Mental Health (IMH), that he had been a sexual predator since he was in Secondary Two. He would seek out primary schoolboys at public places and perform oral sex on them.Chan revealed to Dr Phang: ‘(I) always target young boys, less than 10 years old or 11 years old because it’s the easiest target. Most of them are Chinese… it’s easier to communicate with them’. He also said that he usually targeted ‘primary school boys because it’s easier to get trust from them.’”

Cases over the last 15 years go unreported —- WHY???

These are the findings of the report, on how tens of thousands of boys were sexually abused for decades in Ireland (a conservative religious nation for a good part of the last century) , and how no one bothered:

Sexual Abuse

- Sexual abuse was endemic in boys’ institutions.

- Long-term offenders repeatedly abused children wherever they worked.

- When confronted by evidence of sexual abuse, religious authorities responded by transferring the offender to another location where, in many cases, he was free to abuse again.

- Congregational authorities did not listen to or believe people who complained of sexual abuse in the past, despite extensive evidence to the contrary.

- Older boys sexually abused younger boys and the system did not offer the abused boys protection.

- A culture of silence prevented sexual abuse by members of religious orders being brought to the department’s attention.

- The Department of Education dealt inadequately with sexual abuse complaints

(http://www.independent.ie/national-news/state-of-shame-1746476.html)

I really hope someone steps forward to address this and I would want to contribute where I can too.

“Similarly, the Women’s Charter in Singapore has been abused by NoToRapers. It is sad to see that men in Singapore are so helpless against the these feminists.”

I personally don’t think that life is about a male vs female battle (that’s kindergarten culture!!! )

I  think that all these articles should be gender neutral — ie apply both ways, to males, females, in a marriage, gay marriage, long-term co-habition.

I completely agree, that  men have it worse when it comes to abuse, because of the culture, and the policies/practices rooted in this culture.

(This short post is writen in response to a comment (in italics) from another website.)

http://www.todayonline.com/Print/Singapore/EDC091120-0000099/Victim-reveals-more-of-ordeal-to-female-officer
(reproduced at the end of this post too. I hope that she will be strong, know that none of this is her fault, and that many people care about her and will support her all the way)

(If you are, or know the victim of a sexual/domestic violence crime , and wish to speak anonymously to a female counsellor before deciding whether or not to report to the police, or to simply get help, the AWARE Helpline is open Monday to Friday from 3pm to 9.30pm. Call 1800 774 5935. Aware also has a BeFriender service for a female volunteer to accompany you to make reports, see doctors etc. Aware also has face-to-face private counselling with female professional counsellors. All services are free. Aware depends on the generous financial donations from the public who support our work. http://www.aware.org.sg/direct-services/helpline/   Lesbian/Gay/Bi – Affirmative )

She’s just victimised over and over;

first by the perpertrators,

then by the police
 (insensitive on their part, why did the victim have to request to speak privately to a female officer when it was the job of the officers to help her feel safe? I would even say that by having the male officers interogate the victims, they are creating so much more distressed and should be disciplied for their behavior. This reveals systematic lack of appropriate training for for the force as a whole),

then the media
( as one FB comment goes:  “There were 3 officers at the scene, one of whom was a female. The victim didn’t want to reveal the details to the female officer in the presence of the the male officers and requested to speak with the female officer alone. It is quite normal for rape victims to downplay the shame by referring to the incident as molest. This piece of non-news has no purpose – either the reporter doesn’t know the subject matter or it’s a report for the sake of reporting on this particular court case.” )

and then by lowlife like this   (before you leave a comment for my post, I hope you think about whether you are one of these lowlife, and if you are, please go somewhere else)
http://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/showthread.php?t=2572165&page=5
who make me truly hope that hell exists.

This may not be the most ideal recommendations on how rape cases should be handled, but it’s the best I could find during the 15 min I had to write this. (Appreciate if you fwd me links to better sites/guidelines if you know of them) I was just comparing the recommendations with the TODAY article (reproduced below). Maybe all these were done, just not fully reported. Or maybe the investigations were done exactly as reported, but the Singapore system of having male officers badger her is better. You decide.

http://www.policeone.com/police-products/investigation/evidence-management/articles/509858-Investigating-Rape-Crimes-Part-1-Guidelines-for-first-responders/

 

First Responder Duties
As with any other violent crime, the first officer on scene must ensure the victim receives medical attention. Paramedics must bring the victim to a hospital for medical care and a physical examination to establish the crime of rape or sexual assault. Investigators will take the victim’s garments as evidence, so officers should bring a change of clothes for the victim to the hospital whenever possible. The time to plan for this is early in the interaction. Many victims will have an advocate or friend with them to call on their behalf. Give this person the assignment of getting a change of clothing for the victim. Maintaining the chain of evidence is crucial, and a police officer, preferably a female officer, should accompany the victim in the ambulance.

In addition to following normal procedures in protecting primary and secondary crime scenes, one of the first responders (preferably a female officer) should conduct a preliminary interview with the victim in private to determine if she knows or can identify the person who raped her. The officer should obtain a physical description of the rapist and ask the victim to explain what happened. The investigator, a rape counselor, or another care provider will conduct a detailed follow-up interview in a setting most comfortable to the victim.

 

One thing we lack here in Singapore is  Rape Crisis Center. I’m sure we have people with the appropriate expertise in Singapore to set up such a centre. I hope it gets set up. If anyone is interested, I’ll be willing to contribute in whatever way I can.

The UK Rape Crisis website has some great material & I’m just highlighting some here :

Reporting Rape:   http://www.rapecrisis.org.uk/reportingrape.html

Giving Support: http://www.rapecrisis.org.uk/givingsupport.html

And I was SO SO SO impressed by this page ….. the sensitivity shown  : http://www.rapecrisis.org.uk/hideyourtracks.html

 (If you are, or know the victim of a sexual/domestic violence crime , and wish to speak anonymously to a female counsellor before deciding whether or not to report to the police, or to simply get help, the AWARE Helpline is open Monday to Friday from 3pm to 9.30pm. Call 1800 774 5935. Aware also has a BeFriender service for a female volunteer to accompany you to make reports, see doctors etc. Aware also has face-to-face private counselling with female professional counsellors. All services are free. Aware depends on the generous financial donations from the public who support our work. http://www.aware.org.sg/direct-services/helpline/ Lesbian/Gay/Bi – Affirmative)

———————————————————————————-

 (If you are, or know the victim of a sexual/domestic violence crime , and wish to speak anonymously to a female counsellor before deciding whether or not to report to the police, or to simply get help, the AWARE Helpline is open Monday to Friday from 3pm to 9.30pm. Call 1800 774 5935. Aware also has a BeFriender service for a female volunteer to accompany you to make reports, see doctors etc. Aware also has face-to-face private counselling with female professional counsellors. All services are free. Aware depends on the generous financial donations from the public who support our work. http://www.aware.org.sg/direct-services/helpline/ Lesbian/Gay/Bi – Affirmative)

 Is it any wonder why more females are developing body image problems??

On an unrelated note.

Recently, my credit card has been used for unauthorised transactions. I’ve also been gettin calls from seedy, charge-by-the -hour hotels & seedy bust-enlargement companies over enquiries that i’ve supposedly made online (Inconveniencing the staff there,…..sigh…) . I’ve dutifully reported all this incidents to the credit card company (who has changed my card) & to the police as well, so i’m just gonna let them handle this credit card fraud and identity theft. (might be related to this guy, but I’m not sure…..    http://mathialee.wordpress.com/2009/08/28/wanted-female-police-officers/ )

What I’m really super amused about is this person’s multiple enquiries to bust-enlargement companies.

While our newspapers continually try to persuade its readership that one has to be big to be appreciated , it appears that he/she  hasn’t realised high street fashion has decided that ribs are the new breasts.

It appears that even mediacorp has been catching high street’s drift , with this very disturbing ad……

( http://imcms2.mediacorp.sg/CMSFileserver/documents/006/pdf/20091109/0911HNR013.pdf )

Hey I think this is really important! Too many people ignore the needs of people with certain disabilities thinking its futile to educate them.

Invitation to Focus Group discussion on Compulsory Education for Children with Disabilities
http://maruah.org/2009/11/19/fgdiscussion-compulsoryedchildrenwithdisabilities/
(Aim: children with physical disabilities to be included in Singapore’s Compulsory Education Act; also in line with the Convention on the Rights of Children)

When I went to the Vatican a few months ago I was super impressed. The guy who sold us tickets at the counter had 2 fingers only, and he was just handling all the transactions amazingly fast, no different from othr counters, and the queue was miles long but it cleared really fast.

The cloak room was run by just one guy and he had Downs’ syndrome (or some sort of other social disability) and everything was in perfect order, and so efficiently managed.

I was just so impressed with not only these 2 people, but with the people who hired them. In Singapore, even the enlightened people who hire people with disabilities tend to put them where their area of disability is not directly used in their job. There, I really learnt that your area of”disability” can be the primary requirement of your job, but it doesn’t have to matter at all!

(I mean, 2 fingers only & selling tickets much faster than 4x the speed of ANY movie ticket counter in singapore!!! )

I read with a mix of concern and amusement, the news that NKF was in the red for the first time in 10 years. http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1018819/1/.html

Yes of course, donations have been down, especially since the scandal. It’s down 26% from the last year.

Expenses, aid and subsidies have gone up — we all know it’s getting more expensive in singapore, and more people are needing help. So its nice that the charity is doing its job and providing help.

The one particular thing that really got me noticing was the 97.5% drop in investment income from $3million to $80,000.

Now I really hope that’s because the current management has decided that investment income was something they no longer wanted to depend on and hence made a deliberate effort to not pursue investment income.

Because otherwise, it’s a 97.5% drop!!!! 97.5%!!! wow.  If anyone working in an investment firm, Temasek, GIC, Town Council , whatever. A 97.% drop is hilariously unacceptable, I think.  ( Maybe it’s just me being ignorant, and I know how irritating it is to encounter ignorant people acting like they know something in my field of expertise (health & biology, not econs), so I’ll be glad to learn something if you point out i’m wrong, and that a 97.5% drop is perfectly normal and OK cos it’s not like any money was lost?!?! )

But that’s not really the point I’m concerned with. What I was thinking was that the ex-management — yes the very one thrown out first by popular uprising, and then taken care of by the judiciary —- was really quite savy with the finances . Be it investment, marketing, or simply creating a financially sustainable charity —- they were damned good, so good that they could help themselves to some of the excess.

I’m definately not trying to defend their crimes or unethical behavior here. But what I’m actually wondering is that perhaps we should take a leaf from the PAP’s book, and start paying charity workers & social workers decently.

 Now I’m not talking about paying people 5times what their next highest-paid peers are paid ( http://timesbusiness.typepad.com/money_weblog/2009/04/the-10-highest-paid-politicians-in-the-world.html   (Times Absolute Ranking)  ;     http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/best-paid-politicians/story-0-1225696964080    (Rank by per capita)  oh look at that, Ireland comes in tops in Europe! =D )

I’m talking about simply paying charity workers & social workers the amount they deserve — comparable to their other Singaporean peers with equal educational qualifications and effort put into their jobs!  Not only would it be decent and fair to charity & social workers, we’ll also be able to retain more good people!

Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying existing workers are no good. What I’ve hear from my charity & social worker friends is that fresh graduates (yes they need a degree, and often a masters degree too!  http://www.sasw.org.sg/site/job-vacancies/index.php   ) get into the industry with lots of passion, and learn alot on the job through their early years. However, because the pay just isn’t up to scratch, alot of them leave for other better paying jobs when they decide to start a family, simply to give their families a better life! In this way, the industry loses lots of experienced  people who could contribute so much more to Singapore’s needy. There are very very few experienced people who stay on after decades, they are so overworked!

Charity and social work is not just about physically taking care of people’s needs. One very important aspect of it is managing the financial sustainability of the organisation and helping it grow. Most companies would hire someone with financial degrees and experience; charity organisations should be no different. But because the Singapore society has this mentality that people who work for charity should be doing it out of their own good heart, they should be unpaid volunteers or paid very minimally. Now we have many people in this industry with good hearts, and rightly so. But lots of this work requires full time workers — who need to live decently, go for upgrading courses, have parent’s who need to see doctors, have children who want to go to the university. Paying people minimally would drive good financial managers away.

TT Durai’s model was actually an excellent one (minus ths fraud and gold toilets, that is). I remember him giving a lecture in NUS about his business model : Instead of a Not-for-Profit oragnisation, he actually has a FOR-profit-charity. This way, good people work for the organisation, grow it, an sustain it. Everyone benefits. Yes, fraud was involved, but with every industry eg. banking, politics etc, as long as the appropriate regulations are not in place, fraud is bound to happen. Profit, however, does not mean fraud. Paying people salaries benchmarked to their peers, is not fraud.

I’ve actually long wanted to write on this, but never got around to doing the research. Today’s article was simply an inpiration.

I did a quick google search and found a few things.

Civil Service Starting Salary for a Basic Degree (2007 ) : $2570,     Honours Degree : $2800,      Teachers: 2820   http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/277477/1/.html

Social Workers Starting Salary for Fresh Grads (Current)  :  $1800 – $2400     (Their upper limit doesn’t even come close to a Civil Servant!)
http://www.sasw.org.sg/site/general/social-work-in-singapore.html

Singapore Top 100 paying jobs (2007)   :  Social Workers are NOT even in that list!!!!!!!!! The bottom of that list makes about 4000+ . My social worker friends tell me they hit a ceiling of about $3000 after years of experience because of this mentality that social workers shouldn’t be doing this for profit, and definately not on donation money. 
 http://www.salary.sg/2007/top-100-jobs-in-singapore-2007/

I hope this would change.