Empowering Women

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Order.

Ms He Ting Ru (Sengkang): Mdm Deputy Speaker, I beg to move*, "That this House affirms that gender equality requires a whole of society effort to remove all barriers in order to empower every woman to freely realise her full potential and participation in society."

*The Motion also stood in the name of Mr Leon Perera.

As a little girl, I remember listening to stories told by my maternal grandmother about how she moved with her mother to "nanyang", a term used to describe Southeast Asia by the Chinese diaspora. As the eldest child and being a daughter, her childhood was often a battle between herself and her parents who felt that it was unseemly for girls to not only be seen running around outdoors but for them to be educated. She was allowed to start Primary school but was pulled out two years later when it was deemed this was more than enough education a girl would need. The next three years were a battle, which she obviously won, as she was allowed to attend another two years of school before being banished to the upper floor of their house to look after the household and her younger siblings.

I would imagine how she would sneak books upstairs and hide in dark corners poring through them, as she painstakingly taught herself how to read. This learning was to be a lifelong journey for her, for even into her 90s, she would carry around a battered old dictionary with her, which she would use to look up words she came across in the newspapers that she did not know.

I know that it was a bitter regret of Popo's that she was born a girl and that she was not allowed to further her education as a result. But by the time she passed away five years ago, aged 99, her nine granddaughters have led hugely different lives from being the first Singaporean woman on Everest, authoring best-selling cookbooks, studying, living and working on five continents and speaking here today in this House. She would also marvel at how Singapore's legislative chamber would now comprise 30% women and that there would even be a year officially dedicated to women.

But while we applaud the efforts of all that have made progress for women possible, true gender equality is yet to be obtained. It is something that we still have to work towards. We must make sure that the strides that we have taken do not suffer any reversals, as it is indeed threatening to be the case in a post-COVID-19 world.

Some of the issues faced by my grandmother may seem extreme to us with modern eyes. But I believe we women still feel the vestiges of such issues, whether it is the promotion or pay raise being held off because we have taken or are about to take maternity leave, or the perception that men should continue to play a secondary role in caring for our loved ones.

Just after the General Election last year, the Government announced that 2021 would be designated as the Year to SG Celebrate Women. I noted that the Government is due to publish its White Paper imminently to review women's issues. And the Government has also been carrying out a series of feedback and recommendation sessions through various organisations, ranging from the NTUC Women Committee to the People's Association Women Integration Network, and many more.

I also noticed that eight days after the notice for this Motion was filed, the PAP Women Wing and Youth Wing released its Joint Paper on Women's Development. I am heartened to see that this flurry of activity indicates that we are not alone in believing that much remains to be done to advance gender equality and to remove barriers to empowering women.

Coming back to the reasons for filing this Motion, we at the Workers' Party also believe that it is more important than ever that we talk about the lived experience of our Singaporean women, to identify the areas for improvement and to have a discussion about empowering women to carve out our own roles in Singapore and the world.

It is why our manifesto for the 2020 General Election contains concrete proposals that address issues relating to improving gender equality. The ideas and topics we will bring up today represents the Workers' Party's contributions to the discussion, based on our own policy proposals, lived experiences and our engagement with fellow Singaporeans and our constituents over the years. It is with this in mind that my colleagues and I will today share our thoughts and vision for gender equality in Singapore.

We believe that it is a good thing that the Government has, over the last 12 months, put in much time and effort into understanding the issues relating to gender equality. This Private Member's Motion is our contribution to this national discourse. We look forward to seeing the results of the consultations and conversations held, and hope to see substantive legislative action taken to fully enshrine the changes we want to see into law.

The UN Development Report in 2020 ranked Singapore 12th in the world for the Gender Inequality Index, behind countries such as Switzerland, Denmark and South Korea. Clearly, we can and must do more to improve gender equality in Singapore. The promise of a society in which every woman and girl enjoys full gender equality, where all legal, social and economic barriers to empowerment have been removed, remains unfulfilled.

When speaking about gender equality, I am often asked – as someone who only has sons – why is this an issue which I feel is important? Why would I want to disadvantage my sons by speaking about empowering women and girls to achieve equality with their male peers?

My answer is simple: gender equality benefits all of society. We must stop thinking about gender equality as being gender wars. This is especially the case in Singapore, where we have been told since a tender age, that our people are our only natural resource. Women and girls represent half our population, and any form of gender inequality means that we, as a society, are not able to fulfil our full potential. My sons, along with other boys and men, will and should not be threatened by a more gender equal society. Instead, I believe that they too will benefit when we remove all barriers for both sexes to achieve their full potential and to freely decide whatever role in society each of us chooses to play.

Gender equality should be an aim for all of us and, as we will see during today's debate, men are an integral part of the conversation and must do their part to bring it about. But before we get carried away slapping ourselves on our back and congratulating ourselves for managing to recruit many allies, we should also pause and ask whether it is helpful to conflate this with the attitude that women need "champions" and "rescuing" by some white knight in shining armour, or if women can be empowered to choose for ourselves the best path forward, noting that my best path may or may not be what the next woman needs or desires.

Of course, we must not forget that there are vulnerable groups of women who do need the protection of the law and wider society, and our suggested approach does not take anything away from that protection. Our concern is when we approach gender equality with preconceived ideas of what is right and wrong for a woman's place in society and how we can help them. This is not helpful because women are not victims, and to treat us as such only continues to reinforce some of the patriarchal prejudices that have held women back from achieving our fullest potential for too long.

Another question we get is why we are focusing so much on this topic while the country is battling a new wave of COVID-19 infections, and there are bigger issues which we need to contend with, instead of opening a debate on gender equality. Again, the answer is that across all societies, women make up the bulk of those in the caring professions such as nursing and social care, who have been stretched to their limits in the last 18 months, and at home it is often mothers who have taken on the burden as we juggled home-based work, home-schooling, childcare and housework. It is only right that we address these issues now, as we emerge into a post-pandemic world, to ensure that we do not fall behind in the progress made thus far.

And for those who feel that gender equality is a largely philosophical exercise, perhaps speak to a woman who is denied a pay increment or job offer because of her gender or status as a mother. For us, it does not get any closer to bread and butter issues than this.

How to achieve gender equality is a wide topic that comprises many areas, ranging from the gendered impact of ageing, care responsibilities, and our economic and social contributions. My colleagues and I will today elaborate on each of these and share our thoughts on how we can remove barriers to gender equality, and what support and infrastructure we feel is necessary to better empower women to fulfil their potential.

I would like to focus on a few topics today. First, the systemic and cultural impediments to gender equality, and what can be done about it. Second, the adverse effects that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought to women in particular. Third, the challenges faced by women as we age.

Starting with the biggest impediment to gender equality, it is our view that if we persist in thinking of "women's issues" and "women's success and progress" through the lens of traditional measures, such as climbing the career ladder and economic earning power, gender equality will be hard to obtain.

Work traditionally done by women such as caring, running households and looking after our families, continue to be seen as being inferior or merely ancillary to the "real work" of earning wages. Ask parents of young children during lockdown whether they truly understand how essential and difficult the job of teaching and caring for children is, and we would tell you that we do not understand why such crucial labour is generally seen as being low status and is not well paid.

Conversely, the issue cuts both ways: it is a shame that the worth of a man is also often based so much on his ability to earn wages to support his family, with little acknowledgement given to his wish to also participate in the unpaid labour of the household and the care of his loved ones should he choose to do so.

We should also strive to respect choices that women make and leave room for women to choose non-conventional paths in life. A woman should not be defined by her relationship status, nor should we judge her for deciding not to have children. Instead of jumping to conclusions and assuming that there must be something wrong if someone, especially a woman, is unmarried or does not have children. Perhaps it is time we accept these as one of life's outcomes and move on, instead of constantly questioning what went wrong to lead to it. This approach would also mean much to women – and men – who may be single or childless not by choice, but because of the hand that life has dealt them.

In this, our media also needs to play its part. Notably, in a CNA article dated 30 June 2021, which attempted to explore the trend of highly educated women remaining single, the questions asked were, I quote, "are they too picky, too busy, too independent, too intimidating?" I am just not sure if we will ever see questions like these being asked if a highly educated unmarried man in his 40s were to be presented as the same.

Now that we have laid out the problem, what can we do about it? There have been many studies that have shown that having enough female leaders is important for any society or organisation to ensure that female perspectives are taken into account, and to give rise to a diversity of views and experiences.

As women, we too need to lead by example in accepting and supporting other women, and to show how this can be done, regardless of the choices we wish to make in life. These range from striving to be corporate or political leaders, to deciding to take time off work to concentrate on starting a family or other interests. Easily accessible and widely known support and mentorship networks need to be continued to be built up along with formal mentorship programmes, with both female and male mentors, at various levels to support women.

Policymakers can help, and should work together with employers and other stakeholders to put in place the right policies. For example, we must remove barriers to women who wish to re-enter the workforce by targeted job-matching and paid re-entry schemes.

Our 2020 manifesto's specific proposal was for tax reliefs to be granted to employers to run successful re-entry programmes for mothers and informal carers who have taken time off to fulfil their caring responsibilities. These schemes could range from mentorships to skills updating and should offer a permanent position at the completion. Participants would benefit from not having to accept a lower pay or a lower-skilled position. This is also a proposal which I spoke on during the 2015 General Election campaign. It is also one which the Workers' Party has had in our manifesto since at least 2015.

Beyond this, I am happy to see that there have been calls from all sides for the introduction of anti-discrimination laws to better protect women, especially in the workplace. This is a crucial yet missing part of our legislative framework. Mandating the obligation of a harassment-free workplace that is imposed on employers sends a strong message to our business community that we, as a society, will not accept discriminatory practices against any of our workers. The current TAFEP regime does not go far enough in providing a framework for accountability for perpetrators and neglects the nuances of such situations by placing the burden of reporting the incident on the victim. It has been more than 50 years since the Women's Charter was passed in Singapore. We must make more progress.

Likewise, when we consider that not all women tread or should be expected to tread the same path in life, we should consider the aspirations of women and their partners of when and how to start a family. It is why we have, in our last manifesto, a call for the formation of a not-for-profit National Fertility Centre, to provide assisted conception procedures along with advice. This centre should also look to offering preservation of eggs and sperm to benefit married couples for whom this option may be necessary.

There should also be a wider conversation about re-looking the laws that currently ban egg freezing for non-medical reasons, with any proposed amendments or solutions bearing in mind not only the concerns raised by some of us, but also whether such procedures will be accessible to different socio-economic groups.

More generally, considering the gender angle for any policy being proposed or implemented should also become second nature, and perhaps a national gender scorecard can be created and published in this regard. This scorecard would track progress – or not, as the case may be – that we have made for matters such as the gender wage gap and contain a regular time use study which quantifies the amount of unpaid work being performed in Singapore on an annual basis, particularly as the bulk of care work is undertaken by women. The scorecard can also profile companies that are leading the way in efforts to increase women's participation in leadership positions and decision-making processes to encourage greater adoption of these best practices.

Another partner in our quest to change mindsets relating to prejudice and stereotypes would be our schools. Education is a key way for us to encourage a change in prejudicial mindsets from an early age. Teachers should be empowered to host frank discussions on gender inequality, the impact of discrimination, and a rethink of gender roles and expectations. An independent review of our school curriculum should also be held, as it can help to propose measures to be applied consistently across all schools to make progress on our gender equality efforts.

Moving on to why we need to take action now. Why must we act immediately to put in place the appropriate policies and any legislative amendments while Singapore is still feeling its way out of the pandemic?

It has been found that while men are more likely to suffer ill effects from COVID-19 infections, women across different societies around the world have been disproportionately affected – economically, mentally and physically – by the changes and disruption brought about by COVID-19.

For example, a study by Ipsos in May this year here in Singapore found that household and care responsibilities were sources of strain for more than half of mothers, with similar figures reporting not having the time to look after their physical, mental and emotional well-being. The adverse impact on women stretches across all spheres in a woman's life, from the workplace to the home, as it has been found across all socio-economic classes and societies.

On the economic front, women in the labour market have suffered more than men in the economic slump that has followed the pandemic. A Politico article published last month cited expert opinions that women in low-wage jobs are most at risk of leaving the workforce permanently, which in turn would have a detrimental effect on our economy.

Singapore too is no exception. A study published in the European Societies journal in September 2020 included women in Singapore in their data and found that across the board, changes in working status to unemployment, reductions in working hours and transitions to working from home have been more frequent for women than for men. The consequent loss in income or the adverse impact on careers could be irreversible for us who have been so affected.

For women who do manage to hold on to our employment status despite the ever-changing, challenging environment, study after study has found that the transition to alternative working arrangements and the shutting of schools and care support structures have affected women more than men. In fact, UN Women has estimated that while women were doing three times as much unpaid work as men before the pandemic, the figure has at least doubled since the pandemic hit. Warnings were also sounded that any gains of the last 25 years could be wiped out and there are also many concerns about the impact on the well-being of women who already bear so much mental load of running households.

Having myself come through the circuit breaker last year with a very active three- and two-year-old cooped up at home, locking my study door so that I could answer emails and get on Zoom calls while nursing first trimester morning exhaustion and morning sickness, with our usual main support network in my parents cut off, I often wonder how I managed to survive. I know that I only managed to juggle my full-time job due to an extremely understanding boss. I can only imagine how much worse this would have been for other women such as single mothers and families who do not have access to help at home or a support network.

These challenges are further exacerbated by how gender-based violence too has increased since the beginning of the pandemic. Indeed, the Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE) reported increases of 137% in the number of family violence calls during our lockdown last year.

These developments are worrying and tell us that addressing gender equality must be done even as we continue to tackle the effects of COVID-19.

What is equally alarming is that there appears to be a limited number of Singapore-specific studies available, which leaves us in the dark as to the true impact of COVID-19 on women here.

I, therefore, believe that the Government has to study and publish its data and statistics to measure the adverse impact COVID-19 has had on women, and also to carry out longitudinal studies to measure the different spheres in which women have been adversely affected, and to catch any trends before these reversals become hard-baked into our economy and society.

The fragility of progress in gender equality itself is also a matter for consideration as we build further policies to ensure that future shocks to society do not result in such reversals in the future. My colleagues will continue to set out our proposals to address this.

Finally, to conclude, I would like to touch on the issues that women face when we age. Singapore is ageing and by 2030, 25% of our population is expected to be aged 65 and above. This means that more Singaporeans would need help to perform day-to-day tasks and will cease to be active members of the workforce. The informal caring burden will grow. It is, therefore, essential that we put in place sustainable policies to address these concerns.

As a first step, we repeat our previous call for better recognition of those who carry out these informal caring responsibilities. It is only by measuring the contributions of unpaid workers and publishing it as a supplement to our GDP data that we can start developing policies to guard against these workers, who tend to be overwhelmingly female, from becoming destitute in what should be their golden years.

To add to the challenges women face, the life expectancy at birth in 2020 for women was 86.1, compared with 81.5 for men. Yet, women are more likely to take on a disproportionate role in providing informal care, be it for their children, husbands or elders, often at an economic cost as we often have to scale back on the type or amount of paid employment taken on. Coupled with the gender wage gap, this is something that has serious implications on women's financial resources and, in particular, retirement adequacy.

Indeed, it was found that women have more difficulty than men when it comes to meeting the Basic Retirement Sum in their CPF accounts, with only 56% of women meeting the amount compared to 67% for men in 2018. Clearly, the various top-up schemes available have not addressed this gap between the genders, hence our call to relax rules on the transfer of CPF funds before the age of 55 after the Minimum Sum has been met, to allow transfers to older relatives. While I note there are more top-up schemes available now, it is not yet clear what the impact is on women's retirement adequacy.

We need to continue to question gender norms that view informal caring as primarily a job for women, and instead encourage a more equal distribution of such responsibilities. But the problem will, of course, not be solved overnight. At the same time, it is also key that women who currently shoulder the responsibilities of informal care do not end up being further penalised by our policies.

In this regard, the Workers' Party has spoken up against the Government's current policy of requiring higher CareShield Life premiums to be paid by women as this, at best, causes a double penalty on many women who are already struggling with a gender wage gap and taking on less paid work due to their caring responsibilities.

In 2018, when CareShield Life was introduced, my colleague Sylvia Lim and Pritam Singh, the Members for Aljunied GRC, pointed out not only the devastating impact this would have on women's participation in the labour force, but also fundamentally how this difference in treatment along gender lines directly contradicts the scheme's intended features of "universality" and "risk-pooling".

Apart from being unfair to women, this sets a dangerous precedent where we differentiate policy application within society. For example, if life expectancy differs between races and socio-economic groups, would different premiums then be justifiable between these groups, depending on how we splice the population?

Creating this heavier burden on women, therefore, does not move us in the right direction. National policies such as CareShield Life should pool risk across differences and instead share the burden of care, especially as our population ages.

To conclude, yes, we can be proud of the progress that we have made for gender equality so far. But as has already been acknowledged by many in this House, much work needs to be done. We should not get so carried away by our perceived successes and with patting ourselves on our backs that we miss this key moment to effect sustainable change for gender equality.

I have outlined some of the key areas of concern in this speech and my colleagues in the Workers' Party will continue to do so. I also believe that all of us here do want to ensure that we work together to engender a whole-of-society effort to empower every woman to freely realise her full potential and participation in society.

In that spirit, I look forward to a collegial, frank and honest debate on the Motion. [Applause.]

Question proposed.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Mr Leon Perera.

4.29 pm

Mr Leon Perera (Aljunied): Mdm Deputy Speaker, it is my honour to rise in support of this Motion.

Madam, this Motion calls for a whole-of-society effort to further gender equality. The choice of words in today's Motion, led by my Parliamentary colleague Ms He Ting Ru, is significant and deliberate. The Motion refers to each woman freely realising her full potential and participation in society. The word "freely" refers to how different women may choose different pathways at different stages in their lives, without facing significant disadvantages for the decisions they make.

Why does our Motion speak of the need to strive for gender equality? Because obstacles bar the way to that today.

These obstacles lie in our ecosystem of laws and regulations, which present challenges in terms of discrimination in the workplace and insurance premiums, for example. My Parliamentary colleagues and I from the Workers' Party will cite more examples and offer proposals to address these.

These obstacles also lie in cultural norms, the unspoken assumption that a woman should bear more of the burden of housework even if she has a career like her husband; or the assumption that the mother has to be the one responsible for the child’s academic progress in school and liaising with teachers more than the father.

The obstacles to gender equality also lie in our minds; in the mind of the woman who hesitates to speak up at company meetings such that her male colleagues hog the air-time; or in the mind of the man who believes he can sexually harass a female co-worker with impunity.

In debating this important Motion, let us address ourselves to these three types of impediments to full gender equality: the structural, the cultural and the psychological.

All of society will gain if we succeed in that. Because every woman freely realising her full potential will mean that every woman can give of her best in the workplace and in the home, assured of an environment where she is given opportunities and support that are not less than any man. It means that every woman can strive for new heights in her professional field and contribute fully to leadership. This would mean a better, stronger society, which benefits men too.

The obstacles outlined above underscore the need for us to review the challenges facing the diversity of roles women take on in society. For this speech, Madam, I will take reference from the three most important women in my life: my wife, my mother and my daughter. It is with that reference that I shall touch on three segments of women today: the homemaker, the career women and the young woman who is our hope for tomorrow.

Firstly, Madam, the homemaker. In today’s world and with Singapore’s high cost of living, the decision to be a homemaker is not made lightly by either wife or husband.

My wife was an executive in the fields of public service, communications and academic administration before becoming a full-time homemaker, transitioning via a period of flexible working. Her day is packed as she makes many decisions, while providing a great deal of parenting attention to our teenage children.

In my wife’s case, she sacrificed a dynamic professional career in the media industry for the sake of focusing on our two young children. Many women make this choice knowing that they would have enjoyed more lucrative outcomes if they had stayed on in their careers.

Some women who make this choice find themselves struggling economically in later life, as Ms He Ting Ru referred to. Many women outlive their husbands – life expectancies being what they are – and many have insufficient funds in their CPF, or an insufficient inheritance from their late husbands or support from their children. Older women have 12% to 25% less in their CPF compared to older men, depending on the age bracket.

The Government currently encourages husbands to voluntarily transfer funds to their wife’s CPF. Fifteen thousand persons topped up their spouses’ CPF in 2020, up from 11,000 in 2018. But this is still a drop in the ocean and does not fully address the problem, if you consider the numbers of women who find themselves in this position.

Can quantifying the economic contribution that a homemaker makes help us design policy solutions? An ILO study from 2018 of 60 countries found that men spend 83 minutes a day on unpaid household work whereas women spend three times that, at 265 minutes. Academic studies have been conducted to attempt to quantify the commercial value of the work a homemaker does in other countries, yielding various dollar figures.

It is not fair that women who sacrifice to build a home and support their children should have to struggle later in life because of an inequitable sharing of family earnings. As a start, I would suggest that research be undertaken on the commercial value of a homemaker’s contribution and that this be used as a reference point in determining if there is a need to raise the Government quantum or ceiling for dollar-for-dollar matching of husband’s CPF transfers to their wives or the tax reliefs to the husbands for the same; or other policy interventions.

Next, many women who become homemakers would like to have the choice of going into part-time, flexible work or job sharing. Employers should strive to make more of such options available, as many more progressive employers already do. My colleague Assoc Prof Jamus Lim will speak more on this.

Rather than focusing on consulting work for companies to create more flexible work arrangements, rather than supporting that in Government schemes as a focus, I would urge the Government to consider more schemes that directly financially support, during the transition period, mothers and fathers who want to transition from a homemaker role to part-time work, nudging people to make such a choice and, thus, helping to use local talent to boost our Labour Force Participation Rate.

As the largest employer, the Public Service should set an example here. In 2016, I asked a Parliamentary Question on job sharing and flexible work in the Public Service, revealing that there were 2,000 public officers on part-time arrangements. If the Public Service takes a proactive approach to designing and offering part-time jobs or job sharing rather than only reactively considering applications for such from their full-time officers, it could well find that it is able to tap on a broader field of talent, as well as help ex-officers transition back to full-time work at their own pace.

Next, Madam, many homemakers these days are experimenting with becoming home-based entrepreneurs, working flexibly and often using digital platforms like YouTube videos, virtual meeting providers and e-commerce enabling platforms. Some have become quite good at this.

I hope that such home-based entrepreneurs can obtain the same access to startup grants as other kinds of startups. I would urge our social enterprises and trade associations and chambers to support such micro-entrepreneurship and publicise good case studies. Supporting home-based micro-businesses enriches the ecosystem of options that women, and, indeed, men, have.

As I think back to my wife, I would want her to live in a society which respects and recognises the work she does and gives her many meaningful choices for her future.

Secondly, Madam, I turn to working women. My lodestar when I think about working women is my own mother, who was an excellent, recognised Primary school teacher in a neighbourhood school, and who held up more than her fair share of the work at home.

Many women, like my mother did, toil in the workplace and also, bear an unequal share of housework and parenting work at home. Many also face a non-level playing field at work. How can we make things better?

Madam, we do continue to hear stories of women who feel that they have been denied promotions or pay raises because of their maternity leave, or the expectation of the same, or worse.

According to the answer to a Parliamentary Question (PQ) I filed in March this year, TAFEP handled an average of around 400 discrimination cases each year for the past three years, about a third of which related to gender or age discrimination. In about 50 cases each year, or 13% of cases, the employers were found to be in breach of the Tripartite Guidelines on Fair Employment Practices and had their foreign work pass privileges suspended.

These numbers seem small. However, surveys show that perceptions of discrimination are not small. From the reply to a PQ I filed in February last year and a report released in November, the percentage of Singaporeans who perceived discrimination during their job search process has increased from 10% in 2014 to 15% in 2018. This 15% figure does not seem to me to gel with only 400 discrimination cases a year and only 13% of that 400 leading to actual findings of discrimination.

There could be under-reporting by those who have concerns, by those who feel that they may be on the receiving end of discrimination but have concerns about confidentiality, or are unclear about what is discrimination, or are pessimistic of the odds of success. In fact, some of my constituents have shared such concerns with the current discrimination complaints handling regime.

Currently, from my experience, there is a perception also on the other side among firms, employers, that TAFEP guidelines are not sufficiently clear as to what constitutes a breach. There is also a perception among potential complainants that the burden of proof is on them and the odds of success are not high, which the 13% figure seems to be consistent with.

The advantage of anti-discrimination laws, which the Workers’ Party called for in its 2020 GE manifesto, is that there is necessarily clarity on what constitutes an offence; and a clear line of investigative and prosecutorial responsibility for enforcing the law against offenders. Also, the prospect of an offence by a company would have a stronger deterrent effect than that of merely being found in breach of non-mandatory guidelines and, if you are in the 13%, merely being subject to curtailment of work pass privileges, which is not a publicly known demerit, as it were. Moreover, not every company would be equally dependent on foreign work passes, so that lever of control would have variable efficacy and deterrent effects.

There is an argument, Madam, that anti-discrimination laws would deter investment into Singapore and be anti-business. I disagree. In fact, many companies would benefit from the greater clarity and stronger penalties that such laws provide, as it would enable them to pressure their middle managers more effectively to stop discriminatory practices and, thus, protect their companies from reputational risk, like if an ex-employee takes to social media to allege discrimination. These are things that damage brands.

A 2007 UNESCO study found that much talent is being wasted as women turn away from science and technology careers as a result of discrimination. A World Bank study also found that gender gaps in education and employment considerably reduce economic growth in countries.

Madam, a few days ago, in this House, the Government said that it would review the viability of anti-discrimination laws, a shift in the position that it had previously held and defended inside and outside this House. We in the Workers’ Party welcome this change and look forward to the outcome of this review.

There is more that companies can do to level the playing field for working women. For example, promoting shared paternity and maternity leave, another Workers’ Party manifesto point which my colleague Mr Louis Chua will expand on; countering sexual harassment in the workplace which my colleague Ms Raeesah Khan will speak on; and making available pump rooms and enabling parents to bring children to work under certain circumstances, where practicable.

It is important for us to remember what is at stake in ensuring a level playing field for women. A fairer workplace will bring more women into the workforce and enhance our labour force participation. It promises to unlock female talent.

Ultimately, giving women a fair deal in the workplace is not just about the workplace. It is about ensuring that women have a fair deal at home and across society. Which brings me to the third and last part of my speech, on young women and how we bring about a change in culture and mindsets.

I speak passionately about this because I am thinking about my daughter. She loves debate, literature, current affairs. She is the only extrovert in the family. She has far more friends than I had at her age, maybe even at my age right now. We have raised her to choose her own path freely and to never feel less than anyone else because of her gender or the colour of her skin; and I am proud that she lives and breathes those values.

Madam, gender equality is more than the sum of Government policies. It has to be rooted in our culture and our mindsets.

Too many men, and even women, still feel that the man should be the dominant partner at home; that men have the right to dominate the air-time and the rewards at work; and that "men will be men" socially and standing up to sexual harassment is futile, or worse. What we need is a culture where men, and women, openly acknowledge and shift social mores against non-gender-neutral policies, practices, behaviours and assumptions.

In an Adjournment Motion, my colleague Ms Raeesah Khan spoke about the need for the education system to teach the notion of consent. I would urge the Government to also ensure that Secondary school students are taught the principles of gender equality, as Ms He Ting Ru referred to: what it is, why it is important and what laws and provisions buttress this principle in Singapore. I would like to ask if this is being consistently done through the Social Studies curriculum in Secondary schools right now, and whether this curriculum has been updated to reflect the general understanding of things like harassment that has evolved since the #metoo movement emerged in 2017.

Lastly, Mdm Deputy Speaker, I would like to speak about men. Men need to reflect on our own mindset towards gender equality. From my experience, I do not believe that most men want their wives, mothers, daughters and female friends to live in a gender-unequal society. Having said that, some men continue to harbour sexist attitudes when it comes to things like the notion of consent and when it comes to parenting and housekeeping at home. We need to continue to shine the light on this.

Whole-of-society efforts – from Government, business, NGOs and ordinary citizens – are needed to banish these attitudes into the rubbish bin of history. We cannot adopt the dangerous assumption that these anachronistic attitudes will naturally disappear over time. They would not. The process needs nudging and accelerating.

Madam, I wonder whether National Service can be a platform to convey training, in an engaging way, about how sexist attitudes and behaviour, including domestic violence and harassment, harm everyone. This should be looked into. I made a similar argument when speaking on the Aspirations of Singapore Women Motion in 2017. Efforts should also be made to ensure that most batches of NSFs train under at least one or a few female instructors.

I would also like to address the concerns of some men who have opined that too much talk about sexism against women is in itself sexist and equivalent to misandry or the hatred of men. I had to look this word up, and I do not know if I am pronouncing it correctly.

Madam, it saddened me to see some such comments on the social media platforms of the Workers' Party, Ms He Ting Ru and myself, after we announced the filing of this Motion. The argument used here is that men are placed at a disadvantage due to having to serve National Service and Reservist duty and due to the effect of the Women's Charter on events like divorce.

I do not disagree that there are men who need help and may face unequal treatment in certain contexts. Some men experience abuse from the women in their lives or, as stay-at-home fathers, may face difficulties collecting maintenance payments, for example. Many men struggle to balance Reservist obligations with the demands of their career.

The Workers' Party will always stand up for workers that are facing problems with unequal treatment, whether male or female. But I would urge men to reflect on the fact that while there has been progress, sexism and gender inequality also harm men.

Diminished opportunities or discrimination at work against women mean that men have to step up and bear more of the income-earning burden in the household. Sexist expectations in the workplace and at home can deprive men of the opportunity to be equal co-parents with their wives.

Gender stereotypes also hurt men, for example, the social stigma against men who earn less, who are caregivers and who make non-mainstream career choices.

Moreover, women still face unequal challenges on the whole. Sexist discrimination at work still exists; sexual harassment and assault against women by men still exists, the unequal effect of COVID-19 on women exists, a gender wage gap and unequal CareShield Life premiums still exist, working women bearing an unequal burden of housework and parenting and losing out in their career still happens, along with many other aspects of the gender equality problem that we shall touch on.

Bridging the gap on these issues help the mother, daughters and wife of every man. A shift in the perception of these issues would also signal to men that they have the freedom not to conform to existing stereotypes and expectations placed on them. Therefore, remedying these issues is, ultimately, in the interest of every man.

My wife and I are doing our best to raise our 13-year-old son to deeply internalise these values. The progress he has made thus far gives me cause for pride.

In conclusion, Mdm Deputy Speaker, usually for most policy outcomes, we have quantifiable measures and hard targets we want to achieve. This is a good way to measure the success of any policy we adopt, and that should be continued. But I would like to add that in the case of gender equality, the biggest indicator of success will be when we, as a society, stop boxing women into long-held stereotypes.

When we think of engineers and scientists, will we be gender-blind? Instead of the term "girl boss", why not just "boss"?

Instead of struggling between being a stay-at-home mom and giving up one's career, on the one hand, or being a working mum and facing certain disadvantages and losing out while facing "mom guilt", is it too much of an ideal to expect that one day, women will, by and large, have the tools and means to combine both roles comfortably?

Achieving that balance will go far in benefiting not just women, but the progress of Singapore as a whole. Madam, I support the Motion.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Minister of State Sun Xueling.

4.49 pm

The Minister of State for Social and Family Development (Ms Sun Xueling): Mdm Deputy Speaker, I thank the Members, Ms He Ting Ru and Mr Leon Perera, for moving the Motion. Since the Government launched the Conversations on Singapore Women's Development in September 2020, we have held 160 conversations involving more than 5,700 participants from all walks of life. Participants include men and women, young and old, homemakers, professionals, executives, social workers, students and many more. And they have provided many suggestions and feedback.

Women organisations such as the Singapore Council of Women's Organisations (SCWO), NTUC Women and Family Unit and the People's Association (PA) Women's Integration Network hosted many of these conversations. Other women organisations including PAP Women's Wing, AWARE, trade association women sub-groups and student union groups have submitted their recommendations before the stipulated deadline of 31 July 2021.

The Government had said at the onset of the Conversations that it would consolidate views from the conversations and present action plans for the future in the form of a White Paper. The White Paper would form the basis for a full debate in Parliament as it would have taken the range of views expressed by all participants throughout the process into account. I thank the Members for their views and inputs shared today and I would like to assure them that their views today will feed into this process.

For today, I will focus on the historical context for women's development in Singapore and also provide an update on the Conversations on Singapore Women's Development.

Mdm Deputy Speaker, a discussion on women's development in Singapore needs to take into account global developments, our history, the socio-economic conditions we are in and the values and aspirations of our society. We cannot look at issues in silos, at a point in time, without understanding where they sit, relative to the bigger picture.

The past 130 years has been a time of great awakening and great progress for women in many parts of the world. Women's suffrage gained momentum in the early 1900s in the Western world. From the 1930s, there were more jobs for women in the developed world as the services industry grew.

Singapore found itself in these worldwide winds of change as we moved towards Independence in the 1950s. But what was the status of our women then and what path did we set ourselves on?

In the census of 1957, the general literacy rate of women in Singapore was 29% and only 21.6% of the total female population aged 15 years and above were economically active.

The early PAP party leaders had a vision for the women of Singapore and they believed in women's advancement and gender equality. I have with me the original copy of the People's Action Party's (PAP) manifesto for the Legislative Assembly Elections in 1959. Under its proposed programme, item 10 states: "To raise the status of women by introducing a monogamous marriage law". This was further elaborated in the PAP's five-year plan for 1959 to1964 titled "The Tasks Ahead" where there is a specific section on the emancipation of women and I read: "Women who form nearly half of our population have an important part to play in our national construction. In the first instance, in order to emancipate them from the bonds of feudalism and conservatism, a monogamous marriage law will be passed." Further down in the paragraph, "We shall foster the principle, if necessary by legislation, that there shall be equality of women with men in all spheres and we shall encourage them to come forward to play a leading role in politics, administration, business and industry, education and in other spheres."

Faithful to its publicly declared goals, the PAP took action when it formed the Government in 1959. The Minister for Labour and Law Mr KM Bryne presented the Women's Charter Bill to the First Session of the First Legislative Assembly of the State of Singapore on 2 March 1960. At the Second Reading of the Bill, he said, "The Government is carrying out its promise... that it will enact legislation which... will make it an offence to contract other than monogamous marriages... and to consolidate the existing laws relating to marriage, divorce, the rights and duties of married persons, the maintenance of wives and children, and the punishment of offences against women and girls."

This paved the way for the passage of the Women's Charter in 1961, which was significant, as it raised the social standing of women by institutionalising the equal standing of men and women in marriage and ensuring the welfare and protection of women in Singapore.

It is most apt then, that 60 years later, in September 2020, to advance the trajectory of women's progress and to provide them with enhanced protection, that our current Minister for Law, Mr K Shanmugam, would initiate the Conversations on Singapore Women's Development. This is the PAP Government's continued commitment to the advancement of our Singapore women, in partnership with the whole of society, to continue to support, enable and empower our women.

Between the passing of the Women's Charter in 1961 till today, Singapore underwent rapid transformation and the status of women improved. The political leaders rightly reasoned that for Singapore to be lifted from its fairly low economic status in the 1950s, it needed its entire population to be as highly educated and economically productive as possible.

The Singapore Government systematically introduced and improved legislation, policies and initiatives to advance the progress of Singapore women and worked in close partnership with the community over the years. Forty-one ruling party women Members of Parliament, seven Opposition women Members of Parliament and Non-Constituency Members of Parliament, and 34 female Nominated Members of Parliament have sat in this House to vote on legislation which empowers our women.

First on the agenda was the need to make quality education freely accessible to both boys and girls. Universal education for children of all races, gender and backgrounds was implemented. Boys and girls were equally valued and given as much opportunity as possible to pursue education and skills-based training. Female literacy rate went from 29% in 1957, to 54.3% in 1970 and crossed 80% in 1988. The female share of University intake has remained at about 50% since around 1980.

Healthcare services for women and girls were improved. Did you know that in 1966, KK Women's and Children's Hospital entered the world records for delivering the highest number of newborns within a single medical facility for that year and continued to hold the record for the next 10 years? And we continue to care for the physical and mental well-being of our women and girls. My colleague, Ms Rahayu Mahzam, will touch on this later.

Female employment was encouraged. Female labour force participation rate for those aged 15 and above went up from around 21.6% in 1957, to 29.5% in 1970. In 1991, the female labour force participation rate for those aged 25 to 64 was 51.5%, and stands at 76.6% now. Current programmes such as Career Trial and Jobs Growth Incentive also encourage women who have left the workforce to re-enter the workforce, and tripartite partners work with employers to promote pro-family work environments.

The community had also been active to promote women's advancement. In the 1970s to 1980s, several women's organisations such as SCWO, NTUC Women's Committee, PAP Women's Wing, AWARE and AWWA were formed. In 1978, the first Family Service Centre opened to support vulnerable women and families in need. In 1996, the National Family Violence Networking System, which involved various community partners, was set up to address the problem of family violence.

The Government also knew that women needed to be supported as they strived to balance caregiving and work-life harmony. In 2001, the first Marriage and Parenthood Package was launched, followed by subsequent Packages in 2004, 2008 and beyond. Leave provisions for mothers and fathers were increased over the years and additional support was provided for families via subsidies for maternity-related medical costs and other expenses. Separately, subsidies for childcare and infant care were also provided to families.

As Singapore went from mudflats to metropolis, the Singapore women similarly made significant strides over the years and their contributions are integral to our Singapore story.

Exactly 60 years later from the passing of the Women's Charter Bill, the Government of Singapore launched the Conversations on Singapore Women's Development to chart the next lap forward for our women's progress. Our efforts are consistent and unwavering. There was an open call to the public to participate in the Conversations and we heard from more than 5,700 participants.

Let me now update Members on the key themes that have emerged from the Conversations. And I hope that the Members who have spoken before me would be pleased to note that many of their inputs have been reflected in the key themes.

We heard Singaporeans' aspirations and hopes for Singapore women: (a) that women and men are equally empowered to achieve their career aspirations, and women would not be denied opportunities on the basis of gender and/or family commitments; (b) that caregivers' contributions to society are better recognised, and there is more sharing of caregiving responsibilities between men and women; (c) that stronger protection will be provided to women; (d) that support be strengthened for vulnerable groups of women; (e) undergirding these aspirations, participants hoped that we could overcome traditional mindsets and stereotypes about gender roles in our society.

My colleagues and I were greatly inspired by participants' vision of a Singapore where women and men work as close partners so that real choices are enabled for women, and where whole of society works together, so that everyone can achieve their fullest potential. We thank everyone for participating actively and for sharing your personal stories, challenges, aspirations and ideas.

While the 31 July deadline for submission of feedback has passed, we understand that many Singaporeans and local organisations are still brimming with ideas for Singapore women's progress. Any new ideas from today's session will also feed into the overall process.

We continue to welcome your feedback, so please send them to us before end-August.

Even as we are reviewing the feedback and preparing the White Paper for debate in Parliament, we have begun work to address some of the feedback that we have received, building on what we have already been doing to support Singapore women.

To enhance protection for women, MHA has reviewed the sentencing framework for sexual and hurt offences and increased the penalties for three specific sexual offences. The inter-agency Task Force on Family Violence will release its recommendations later this year. MCI launched a Singapore Together Alliance for Action to tackle online harms, especially those targeted at women and girls.

To cultivate a shift in mindsets, MOE has enhanced its Character and Citizenship Education curriculum to build an appreciation of the equity of roles in the family, respect for both genders and the importance of not ascribing to gender stereotypes when considering education and career pathways.

To review how we can stamp out discrimination in the workplace, MOM announced that it was setting up a tripartite committee to study whether legislation should be pursued and its appropriate scope.

Mdm Deputy Speaker, as the saying goes, "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." In the past 60 years, we have made significant progress because of partnership at all levels of society. This year, through the Conversations launched by the Government, we will have outlined and united around a common vision for Singapore women's progress.

Given the importance of Singapore women's progress to our nation, the Prime Minister will be attending the final session of the Conversations in September and he will be sharing our plans for the future, taking into consideration the feedback received from the Conversations.

Mdm Deputy Speaker, I support the good intentions of the Motion. Individuals, families, employers and the community have all played important roles in this partnership. In the next lap of our journey, let us all work even more closely together, towards a fairer and more inclusive society where our Singapore women can realise their fullest potential. Mdm Deputy Speaker, in Mandarin, please.

(In Mandarin): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] In the past 50 years, the status of Singapore women has improved significantly. The female labour force participation rate has risen steadily, about half of Singapore’s University graduates each year are women, and Singapore consistently ranks amongst the top internationally on indices related to women’s development.

The development of Singapore women has benefited from economic development, social progress and the tireless efforts of the PAP Government over the years.

In 1961, the Women's Charter, which was spearheaded by Ms Chan Choy Siong and others from the PAP, came into effect. This was a major breakthrough at the time and signalled a big step forward for Singapore women. The Charter legislates monogamy, emancipating women from the bonds of feudalism and conservatism. It also protects the rights of women in marriage and divorce, provides for the maintenance of wives and children, and punishes crimes against women and girls.

Since then, the PAP Government has remained steadfast in its commitment to further the advancement of women. This includes improving childcare and healthcare services, prioritising the development of children, making universal education available, promoting equality between women and men, encouraging women to pursue higher education, protecting workers' rights and encouraging women to work. Our efforts paid off and together we went through the changes of times.

In order to provide care for women of all ages, the Government has introduced a series of policies to address their different needs. For example, older women may worry about not having enough retirement funds. They worry about what happens if they fall ill or if their husband falls ill.

In recent years, the Government has introduced the Matched Retirement Savings Scheme to increase their CPF savings and also, increased subsidies through the Silver Support Scheme. In addition, the Government has also introduced the Pioneer Generation and Merdeka Generation packages to reduce the burden of medical expenses for the elderly. In 2019, MOH also introduced the Caregiver Support Action Plan to strengthen support for caregivers.

All these policies benefit older women.

For the new generation of Singaporean women, they want to pursue their dreams and hope that they can take good care of their families and children.

On the one hand, the Government provides equal education opportunities for women. Schools now have an Education and Career Guidance programme to encourage girls to choose science, engineering, mathematics and other courses to facilitate their participation in a wider range of industries in future.

On the other hand, the Government has been investing heavily in early childhood education and infant care services in recent years, to reassure mothers and provide children with accessible, affordable and quality education.

At the same time, we have been listening closely to women’s voices and the community’s feedback.

In September last year, the Government launched the Conversations on Singapore Women's Development to better understand the current development of women and their concerns. Over the past 10 months, together with community partners, we have organised 160 Conversations on Singapore Women’s Development, with a total of 5,700 participants.

I am glad to note that the participants have responded enthusiastically and shared their ideas and suggestions. We will also collect any new suggestions from Members of Parliament today.

After the series of conversations, we will consolidate the feedback and draw up a White Paper to submit to Parliament. We look forward to more in-depth discussion on women’s issues, to provide solutions to outline a common vision for the advancement of Singapore women.

The PAP Government has always been a strong advocate of women's development, in the past and at present. Looking ahead, we will continue to work tirelessly for the development of Singapore women, with community partners and organisations, building on the hard work of our predecessors.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Mr Louis Chua.

5.09 pm

Mr Chua Kheng Wee Louis (Sengkang): Mdm Deputy Speaker, gender inequality manifests itself in a number of forms here in Singapore: unequal pay for equal work, unpaid care work and lower-wage work choices available to women, to name a few.

My speech today will touch on the unequal distribution of care responsibilities and how this is linked to discriminatory social institutions and stereotypes about gender roles.

The changes in working patterns due to the COVID-19 pandemic have increased the spotlight on gender inequality that exists at home and, in particular, the difficulties women face in being both caregivers and breadwinners.

Strong societal recognition of shared responsibilities helps reduce the disadvantages women face in the workplace, including the "motherhood penalty", "mom guilt" and stigma that they face when they want to return to the workforce. Women would have more time for themselves to rest, to pursue their aspirations freely and to contribute even more to the community at large. Similarly, men too will be able to put aside their fears of being discriminated against at the workplace, facing backlash for their lack of perceived work commitment, in trying to take on greater responsibility for caregiving roles at home.

Sad to say, we are not quite there yet and the idea of equal, shared responsibilities remains an ideal.

Earlier this year, I recall watching a documentary series produced by CNA, "Give Mum A Break!", which documents three Singaporean households and what happens at home when moms are shipped off to a four-day, three-night staycation, leaving dads to hold the fort at home.

They struggled, to say the least, and while it was amusing to watch, truth be told, I have doubts in my mind whether I can survive being at home on a one-to-one basis with my two-year-old toddler and for three nights straight.

Based on a study by market research firm Ipos and United Women Singapore (UWS), close to nine in 10 agree that household chores can be equally shared by husband and wife. However, fewer women, or about 54%, than men, or about 75%, say that they are happy about their household and caring responsibilities, with wider gap between mothers and fathers at 47% and 78% respectively.

We need not look further than Singapore's official manpower statistics to see such effects play out. Based on MOM's Labour Force in Singapore 2020 report, women represented 63% of residents outside the labour force as of June 2020 or 689,400 out of the total of 1.1 million residents. Of the men reported to be outside the labour force, a mere 0.2% cited housework as the main reason for not working, which is the least common reason among men.

This is in stark contrast for women where housework was the most common reason for not working, coming in at 21.5% of women outside the labour force.

Meanwhile, only 2.5% of men were outside the labour force due to care responsibilities for their own children and family members, which is, again, significantly different from that of women at 15.9%.

This echoes an MSF survey on social attitudes of Singaporeans, where 96% of married working women indicated that they were equally or primarily responsible for caregiving responsibilities, compared to 53% of married working men. While this survey was from 2013, this reinforces the societal standards that have been placed on women to take on the larger responsibility in their households.

Statistics aside, few would disagree that much of today's unpaid care work is still done by women as it is largely considered a female responsibility. While there is an increased awareness of shared responsibility within and between households today, there is much work that remains invisible and unpaid. This needs to be urgently addressed if we are to advance women's development in Singapore because such work, if it remains unpaid and unnoticed, has effects on the female labour force participation.

Recognising unpaid labour, whether carried out by men or women, must, therefore, be the first step in addressing the disadvantages faced by those that take on the bulk of unpaid labour for a household. There should be annual measures of the amount of unpaid work undertaken by Singaporeans and this should be published as a supplement to national GDP data, as shared by my colleague, Ms He Ting Ru.

An International Labour Organization report published in 2018 estimated that women in APEC countries do four times more unpaid care work than men. In the local context, the study by Ipsos and UWS I referred to earlier highlighted that women are doing more unpaid domestic work than men think they are. The study notes that while gender-defined roles still exist in the Singaporean household and are held by both men and women, the younger generation holds these views less. Entrenched patriarchal views can and are shifting. Society is moving towards acceptance and being supportive of equal caring responsibilities and this is encouraging. But we can do more as we create our roadmap towards gender equality.

It is often suggested that to address the unequal distribution of caring responsibilities, we must begin by addressing internalised gender norms and stereotypes in redistributing responsibilities for care and housework between women and men.

In today's context, we need to be mindful that gender norms and stereotypes may be internalised differently for different groups. As suggested by AWARE, a review should be conducted via an intersectional lens to understand the differential impact it has on not just men and women, but those with disabilities, ethnic minority women, migrant women and so on.

As a starting point, as lawmakers, it is important for us to do a stock-take on our existing policies, to ensure that our care-related policies do not ironically perpetuate stereotypes and reinforce notions on gender roles. At the same time, we need to provide adequate support to all caregivers in Singapore to enable all caregivers, whether women or men, to freely realise their full potential in society.

My fellow Sengkang Member of Parliament Assoc Prof Jamus Lim has asked about instituting different tiers of childcare leave such that those with more children will be entitled to comparatively more days of leave. In my MOM Committee of Supply (COS) speech earlier this year, I too called for childcare leave to be extended on a per child basis and up to the age of 12, as our Primary school-going children would still need a degree of care if they fell ill, or simply to allow families to spend more time together. The COVID-19 pandemic over the last one and a half years has also compounded the problem, where a Stay-Home Notice issued to children who are down with respiratory symptoms would effectively wipe out five days of leave for working parents, making it extremely challenging for parents to balance their work commitments.

With an increasingly ageing society, we also have a moral duty to take care of our parents. And as of June 2020, the population of children between age zero and four is at 183,000 as compared to 611,000 elderly citizens aged 65 and above, with our population continuing to age. Many companies have started to offer eldercare leave as an Employee Value Proposition and I have asked if this could be considered as statutory leave.

The Singapore Council of Women's Organisations (SCWO) has advocated to make childcare leave and eldercare leave interchangeable. AWARE too has suggested that the Government could implement the statutory right to request for flexible work arrangements, as well as making paid eldercare leave and family care leave mandatory for sandwiched caregivers. Similarly, the Singapore Alliance for Women in Ageing (SAWA) has called for the conversion of childcare leave to family care leave, which could allow other members of the family to help provide the necessary care for persons who need it. These are worthy suggestions to improve the ecosystem of support for women caregivers in Singapore.

Additionally, changing family structures require more flexible guidelines for support, such as expanding the definitions of leave and subsidies, to ensure that all caregivers are supported. For example, extended families providing care on a regular basis for children of our frontline workers during this pandemic, or grandparents who provide care to the grandchildren, whom the MOH recognises as essential and would not be counted towards the prevailing permissible visitor cap per household, or to the number of social gatherings per day. These caregivers are currently not entitled to caregiving or childcare leave, unlike their peers who have children.

The reality is, caregiving responsibilities between parents of children go beyond the couple. It takes a village to raise a child and our policies should provide new recognition to the village and to go beyond merely adopting a so-called "practical approach to calibrating childcare leave provisions".

More broadly, despite the release of the Tripartite Standard on Flexible Work Arrangements in 2017, true flexible work arrangements only became commonplace in Singapore due to COVID-19.

In 2019, it was said that about 85% of employers offered some form of formal or ad hoc FWAs in the workplace. However, FWAs come in a spectrum and, clearly, the level of flexibility that was in place pre-COVID-19 is dramatically different from what we have seen in 2020, or even today with Work-from-Home being the default work arrangement.

As I have shared in my MOM COS speech, it is now time for the Government to reflect the needs of today's employees and employers, and legislate a baseline level of flexible work arrangement, so that we do not have to make the false choice of choosing between work or family.

Calling on employers to implement good practices and foster more family-friendly work environments may not be enough, particularly when much of caregiving right now is narrowly defined as childcare, care for disabled persons or for the elderly. Even if eldercare leave is available, it is currently not a legislative requirement, some in Singapore may not be eligible for it if they are caring for a spouse and are elderly themselves.

Caregiving should be as broad, gender-neutral and norm-free as possible if we are to ensure greater equality for women in Singapore.

If we do not address unequal care responsibilities, caring can become a drain on Singapore's workforce. Caring tends to be overlooked in the workplace, leading to some having to choose between gainful employment and their families. In the near future, this could apply not only to women, but to men as well. This is pertinent because with life expectancy increasing and slower population growth, we must begin to make changes so that employers can better support workers that have work and care responsibilities.

One way is to ensure that managers are adequately trained to overcome unconscious gender-bias towards employees. This should be a mandatory part of workplace training if workplaces are to become more inclusive. Male-dominated industries should also review their diversity policy and enhance support in the workplace, including recognising men as caregivers. Indeed, men are also sons, fathers, brothers and more.

Men may be concerned about being discriminated against professionally, missing out on promotions and pay increases, marginalised, or even laughed at for taking time off. Gender norms and stereotypes are also damaging for men, and while cultural and mindset shifts are important, institutional changes are also going to be necessary if we are to move towards equal care responsibilities.

This brings me to my next point on the role of fathers in a child's development.

As a father to a two-year-old toddler, I am thankful to have witnessed his various development milestones over the past two years, and partake in the joys of parenthood, while continuing to stay productive at work.

Psychological research across families from different ethnic backgrounds suggests that fathers' affection and increased family involvement help promote children's social and emotional development. However, according to research by Dads for Life, there has been a continued lag in terms of fathers' involvement compared to mothers, in Singapore.

Some of these, as discussed earlier, is due to entrenched gender norms. Teachers may call up the child's mothers instead of their fathers, as fathers may be perceived as "too busy working". A Dads for Life Fatherhood Perception Survey in 2010 highlighted that 39% of fathers surveyed said that society's views on how men should behave also posed challenges to them.

There must be more attention given to fatherhood and to the diverse range of fathering practices and for further local research to understand and support fathers' involvement as the times change. We should not blame women's education and careers leading to calls for more equal parenting, and instead be channelling more time and effort to understanding and overcoming the challenges men's roles in care-giving, including fatherhood. The last Fatherhood Perception Survey was done more than 10 years ago and is long overdue.

What can we do as lawmakers to make this change? This is where our existing care-related policies covering Government-paid maternity and paternity leave run the danger of further reinforcing gender roles and stereotypes. When my son was born, as much as I would like to be alongside my wife on our parenthood journey as first-time parents, the mere two weeks of paternity leave was not even sufficient to last throughout my wife's confinement period.

The Workers' Party has in our manifesto called for a shared parental leave scheme that entitles parents to 24 weeks of Government-paid leave, to be shared between mothers and fathers as they choose, but with a minimum of 12 weeks to be granted to the mother and four weeks to the father. This scheme would replace the existing 16-week maternity and two-week paternity leave entitlements. So, we are looking at 24 weeks instead of 18 weeks in total, of gender-neutral parental leave.

This would encourage closer parental bonds with children while having positive effects on the relationship between the parents. Shared parental leave supports fathers who want to partake in the joys of parenthood and allows them the flexibility to take on greater responsibilities in childcare to support their wives.

In addition, the Workers' Party also shared in our manifesto the need to increase the number of infant care centres to better serve the needs of young families and the motivation behind this is manifold. Having adequate infant and childcare places will allow caregivers, both men and women, to free up some of their time in the day and play the necessary roles of a parent, employee and individual, without having to sacrifice their career or retirement adequacy.

In my MSF COS speech earlier this year, I noted that while the Government has increased the number of infant care and childcare places over the last five years, this is still woefully inadequate in towns such as Sengkang, which has the highest number of young children across Singapore by planning area. There are 16,380 zero- to four-year-olds and 17,600 five- to nine-year-olds as of June 2020. As such, while there may be vacancies in the system as a whole today, this may not be so for particular areas with a higher concentration of young families.

Meanwhile, the Workers' Party also called for childcare subsidies to be equalised for all children, regardless of the employment status of their mothers. At present, mothers of Singaporean children working at least 56 hours a month are entitled to additional childcare subsidies. This, however, does not take into account the unpaid care or voluntary work that other mothers take on, or those who are engaged in part-time work due to their care commitments.

All these, ultimately, shows the importance of state policies in enabling women, and men, who are key members of our families and society, to be supported in their efforts as a parent, individual and employee. Building strong families and societies must start with supporting parents with young children to achieve their fullest potential, all whilst becoming a more involved parent.

Mdm Deputy Speaker, there is arguably still a long road ahead of us before we can proudly say that there is strong societal recognition of equal and shared care responsibilities between men and women. Post-pandemic, companies should consider making flexible work arrangements a norm at workplaces, as many forward-thinking companies have already done so to boost employee productivity and promote talent retention. As individuals, we should not be afraid to challenge archaic gender stereotypes and to support our own families to the best of our abilities.

But, more importantly, as lawmakers today, we have an opportunity to set the right tone on gender equality in Singapore and it is imperative for the Government to demonstrate leadership on this matter by setting right our current care-related policies today.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Mr Vikram Nair.

5.27 pm

Mr Vikram Nair (Sembawang): Mdm Deputy Speaker, the progress of women's rights has been long drawn and hard fought in many parts of the world. Even in developed countries like the UK and the US, women obtained only basic legal rights such as the right to vote in 1918 and 1919 respectively, thanks to the efforts of early women's rights activists like the suffragettes, the century before that.

Around the 1960s and 1970s, women's movements started taking off again in the Western world as the movement focused on political and economic rights, and substantive equality. Helen Reddy's famous song, "I am woman" was from this era, in 1971, topping the charts in 1972.

Singapore had a jump start in women's rights with the Women's Charter in 1961, which was focused on legal equality for women. This included making polygamy an offence, prohibiting marriages between close relations and including a minimum age for marriage. So, we can imagine some of the issues that were present at that time. Consent of the married couple was also made a requirement. Rights and duties of husbands were legislated for and protections were put in place in the event marriages broke down. This legislation was ground-breaking at the time, forcing many established practices to change.

Since then, women have made leaps and strides in the journey to equality. I have seen this in my own family. Both my grandmothers had their education cut short in Primary school as a result of World War II. After the war, neither returned to school. One was told that being too educated would make it more difficult to get married. The other, who was the eldest child in her family, had lost her own mother and had to take care of her younger siblings, so she took on a caregiving role as a young teenager.

Their children, my parents' generation, were born during the post-war baby boom. The daughters of that generation, unlike their mothers, had the opportunity to attend and complete school. In fact, Primary school was mandatory for many of them. My maternal grandmother, who was an excellent cook, refused to allow any of her four daughters to assist in the kitchen, insisting they study instead.

This generation of women who joined the workforce in the 1970s and 1980s were more economically independent than the generation before them. This period also saw women become global leaders. Leaders of this era included Golda Meir in Israel, Margaret Thatcher in the UK, Indira Gandhi in India and Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan. It was quite clear that women were capable of leadership at the highest levels.

In my household, my father and mother both supported each other in caregiving and providing, and they also had support from our grandparents. In contrast to my mother who was kept out of the kitchen by her own mother, my mother actually got me my very first cookbook back when I was in Primary school and encouraged me to try out the recipes.

When my mother went off to further her studies for three years while my brother and I were in Primary school, my father and his parents played the main caregiving role.

Essentially, I grew up without too many stereotypes on male and female roles and believing that women could do and achieve anything men could and, likewise, that men could also play a part in the household. In Primary school, I was fortunate to be in the top class in my Primary school, but boys were outnumbered by girls, two to one. I went to an all-boys Secondary school, but in Junior College, again I was outnumbered in class, boys to girls, two to one. In University, all around me, women were very well represented and the law faculty had around equal numbers of men and women.

However, after entering the workforce and starting my own family, I realised that women still face obstacles to attaining substantive equality. There are not as many women as men in leadership positions in organisations and women still end up being the primary caregivers for children and the elderly. Usually, because they are the primary caregivers, they will drop out of the workforce or work part-time at some stage of their working lives, which in turn feeds into more difficulties getting back into the workforce.

These issues are often more difficult to solve as they involve changing not just laws but social attitudes and "invisible" barriers or "glass" ceilings. These have been matters that the Government has continued to focus on over the years. Last year, for example, the Government started conducting a series of dialogues called "Conversations on Women Development". As Ms Sun Xueling mentioned earlier, there were 160 such talks. I attended one of these dialogues, along with Minister Indranee Rajah with Indian and Sikh women, organised by SINDA, REACH and the Young Sikh Association. Mdm Deputy Speaker, I will now continue in Tamil.

(In Tamil): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] In this dialogue with Indian women that Ms Indranee Rajah and I participated in, we broke up into smaller groups, each focused on different issues women face in achieving equality. One set of issues raised by women was that although the laws were in place for equality, family and societal expectations had not changed to a large extent.

One woman, who was a scientist in her 30s, mentioned that her family members still keep pressurising her about marriage. She also mentioned that many of the men she meets are intimidated when they find out she has a PhD and is engaged in research.

A number of women echoed issues related to discrimination at the workplace. The law is clear that pregnant women cannot be discriminated against. However, some women indicated that notwithstanding this, employers sometimes express displeasure when a woman is pregnant, especially in the case of smaller companies, which puts them under pressure with bosses and colleagues.

Older women who have taken several years to be out of the workforce for caregiving duties, have challenges finding jobs again, even though they may have relevant skills and qualifications.

In relation to caregiving, some mentioned that the availability of childcare and senior care facilities have been helpful in allowing them to minimise time out of the workforce in order to care for loved ones. However, they also mentioned that support for those caring for seniors is still lagging behind the extensive support that there is already for childcare. Senior care leave is not provided for and senior activity and daycare centres are not as readily accessible. There is also a tremendous emotional burden when caring for loved ones in their twilight years.

In addition, another topic that was raised was the stigma women faced when in unconventional living situations. These include single unwed mothers who are unable to get many of the benefits that married mothers could, even though they are usually in a worse-off situation. Divorce also carried stigma and some continued to remain in abusive marriages because of this.

Despite all the issues raised though, almost all the women acknowledged that tremendous strides have been made in relation to women's issues in the course of their lifetimes and almost all had better opportunities than their mothers and grandmothers. However, there is still much to do.

(In English): Deputy Speaker, in English. The journey to get more equal outcomes for women is ongoing and one that our Government has been pushing hard since Independence. I thank my colleagues from the Workers' Party for their support in this important journey. As the Motion rightly acknowledges, this is a whole-of-society effort to remove the barriers, both visible and invisible, to help women achieve their full potential. I would, however, like to go a little further and would like to see action and concrete steps to help remove these barriers.

In relation to this, the Government had announced in September last year that it would be presenting a White Paper arising from its findings from the Conversations on Singapore Women's Development. Many conversations with different groups of women had been taking place, similar to the one I had mentioned earlier, and I expect there will be interesting insights from these Conversations. What I hope is that the findings in these dialogues can be converted to action plans.

Mdm Deputy Speaker, in line with the above, with your permission, I would like to propose to amend the Motion.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Can I have a copy of the amendment? [A copy of the amendment was handed to Mdm Deputy Speaker.]

The amendment is in order. Are copies available for Members?

Mr Vikram Nair: Yes, I have given copies to the Clerks for distribution.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Right, we will distribute the amendment to the Members. [Copies of the amendment were distributed to hon Members.] Please move your amendment.

Mr Vikram Nair: Mdm Deputy Speaker, I beg to move in line 3 after the word "society", to add the following words: "and looks forward to action plans in the upcoming Government White Paper arising out of the Conversations on Singapore Women's Development".

The Motion as proposed by the Workers' Party is one that I think everyone in this House agrees with and as my colleague, Ms Sun Xueling set out, has been in line with the Government's efforts since inception and over the last year. The additional words I am proposing are to tie the spirit of the Motion with concrete action, which I hope the Government will put forward in its White Paper.

I propose that the debate of this amendment take place concurrently with the debate on the main topic. I look forward to support for this amendment from my colleagues in the Workers' Party too. I am sure they too would want to see what plans the Government has in store as well for these issues being raised. Mdm Deputy Speaker, I beg to move.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: It has been proposed as an amendment, in line 3 after the word "society", to add the following words: "and looks forward to action plans in the upcoming Government White Paper arising out of the Conversations on Singapore Women's Development".

It may be convenient that the debate on the original Motion and on any other amendments moved by Members be proceeded with simultaneously as a debate on a single Question. Do I have hon Members' agreement to this?

Hon Members indicated assent.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: The question is, "That the words proposed to be added, be there added." Ms Raeesah Khan.

5.41 pm

Ms Raeesah Khan (Sengkang): Mdm Deputy Speaker, my speech today is about women. I want to focus on four main areas: sexual violence, female genital cutting, polygamy and the hijab.

Last month, I spoke about sexuality education. I shared that underaged cases made up 37% of sexual violence cases between 2017 and 2019. Yet, our sexuality education programmes only teach consent explicitly at the University level and sexuality education at lower levels happens just once or twice a year. Without consent-focused sexuality education from a young age, our children remain vulnerable to sexual violence – a trauma that can hurt a person for a lifetime.

Sexuality education is a lifelong journey that starts at home and in school. Open, non-judgmental discussions about consent and respect under a standardised and compulsory national curriculum are essential, as are safe spaces and bystander training from an early age. This will help our children grow up to be responsible, aware adults and make Singapore a safe and nurturing home for all.

The PAP Women's Wing and Young PAP released a Joint Paper last week on Women's Development that includes a review of sexuality education. I am glad to see this consensus on our need to update sexuality education and look forward to more conversations on such updates.

Persons with intellectual disabilities, too, have often been victims of sexual violence. In the US, a study on sex crimes data found that persons with intellectual disabilities of all genders were victims of sexual assault at rates over seven times higher than those of persons without intellectual disabilities. Closer to home, a man was charged in November last year for sexually assaulting his 17-year-old intellectually disabled daughter when her mother was not home. This March, a woman was jailed for sexually assaulting her daughter's intellectually disabled schoolmate on several occasions. These cases surfaced as the first victim's teacher had noticed something was amiss and the second victim had reported the incidents to social workers.

As with all sexual assault cases, it is likely that many more go unreported. I would like to ask the Minister for Home Affairs, out of the total number of sexual assault cases reported and prosecuted in the past five years, how many cases involved individuals with intellectual disabilities? I hope that studies can be done on this issue so we can better protect our Singaporeans with intellectual disabilities from violence and its resulting trauma.

Where possible, we should also seek to improve training for teachers, social workers and others who may interact with these vulnerable individuals, to help them better identify potential cases of abuse and sexual violence.

As we improve our policies targeted at preventing sexual violence, it is just as important for us to improve support for survivors. The suicide of a South Korean female air force officer, three months after she had been sexually assaulted and pressured to cover it up, is a powerful reminder of the cost of turning a blind eye to survivors and their needs.

In the case of Nicholas Lim, who filmed a fellow female student while she was showering, the survivor shared with the public that she did not receive much support.

While many institutions have since moved to improve their support structures for survivors of sexual violence, this has likely varied among institutions. It is incredible to see the emergence of more ground-up initiatives, including safe spaces and support groups for victims of sexual assault. Could the Minister for Social and Family Development share on current work done by the Ministry and other Government agencies to offer robust and accessible survivor support in the medium to longer term, including but not limited to psychologists, therapists and support group linkages?

In my line of work, I have accompanied people to Police stations to make reports on sexual violence. It is already incredibly difficult for survivors to feel comfortable making a report in the first place, but sometimes the responses from those called to protect us can be disheartening. Three years ago, I accompanied a 25-year-old survivor to make a Police report against a rape that was committed against her. She came out crying. The Police officer had allegedly made comments about her dressing and the fact that she was drinking.

We need better treatment of survivors of sexual assault and sexual harassment by law enforcement. In recent years, we have seen training rolled out for judges and regulations for how lawyers argue sexual assault cases – all steps in the right direction to prevent re-victimisation. I would like to call on MHA to provide more Police officers with specific sexual violence training to handle sexual assault and harassment cases with sensitivity and care towards victims during the reporting and investigation process. Survivor-centered care is a crucial step in addressing sexual violence and our Police officers can also be supported by counsellors or trained mental health personnel at Police stations other than the Onesafe Centre in Police Cantonment Complex.

Assuring survivors that they can be taken seriously and not blamed for the horrors that they have faced is an important step of making our law enforcement system more just. This will help build confidence in the sensitivity and capacity of law enforcement to handle difficult issues delicately, and will encourage more victims of sexual violence to come forward. While I acknowledge that providing more victim support and increased reporting will require more resources on the part of law enforcement, I believe that this is something we must commit to.

No victim should ever feel like those with the power to safeguard them have disregarded their needs.

I move on to the topic of female genital cutting or FGC, defined by UNICEF as the injury, partial, or total removal of the external female genital organs for non-medical reasons.

This practice – Sunat Perempuan, as it is known in Malay – continues in Singapore, quiet though it may be. It has not escaped the notice of the foreign press, such as Reuters and the BBC, or even local activists working on this issue. Many of my friends in the Malay/Muslim community have gone through this practice themselves.

While there are many facets to this complex issue, I wish today to solely focus on the medical and health implications of the practice.

As recently as 20 years ago, FGC was performed by traditional midwives in homes with no sterilisation or anaesthesia. Today, I understand that the procedure is mostly performed by doctors in private clinics. The cut ranges from a symbolic placement of scissors or a penknife on the intended organ, or a nick, but the most common form of cutting in Singapore still involves some removal of genital tissue.

The effects of FGC are wide-ranging. Anecdotal experiences reveal an over-cutting or laceration of other parts of the vulva. Considering that the typical size of a baby girl’s vulva is a mere 1.5 centimetre, this may lead to a disproportionate loss of nerve endings and the creation of scar tissue. Additionally, as with any invasive medical procedure, there is always a chance of infection.

Female genital cutting may also hurt a baby’s attachment to her caregiver. A study by the Washington University School of Medicine found that a common defence mechanism of the nervous system to pain is to shut down, which negatively affects interactions with the caregiver. A second potential negative mental health impact is on childhood brain development. Exposure to acute pain in babies and children activates biological stress responses, which may hinder optimal development.

In essence, babies feel pain. Even if they process it differently from adults, babies still face the risk of long-term physical and mental health implications – as well as strained bonds with their parents – with female genital cutting.

In a reply to the BBC article, a representative of MUIS said it "does not condone any procedures which bring harm to the individual", adding that the Council has "always held the position that female genital cutting should be avoided". Noting the pain that such acts can bring to females undergoing such practices, I strongly urge the MOH to conduct a thorough review of female genital cutting procedures done in private clinics. We should aim to standardise and make transparent the amount of skin cut during the procedure, or enforce that the practice should be purely symbolic, ensure that the proper instrumentation is used, and, as with similar types of medical procedures, require medical counselling for those who seek to carry it out.

The counselling process will allow for doctors to first assess if a baby is medically fit to undergo the procedure, as well as to educate parents on the potential risks. The counselling can also serve to make sure neither parent is being coerced to comply with the practice, either by their spouse, relatives or external parties. After counselling, there should be a mandatory 48-hour period, after which, if the parents still wish to proceed with the cutting, they may arrange another appointment.

The decision to proceed should be unanimous and there should be measures in place to ensure that the procedure is being done with the knowledge of both parents.

Finally, I hope that the Ministry can commission a study to find out the prevalence of the practice and evaluate the accompanying medical risks that may follow. This will help us understand the potential medical risks faced by those who undergo the procedure.

In Singapore, only in marriages under the Registry of Muslim Marriages (RMM) are men allowed to marry more than one wife, and even up to four wives at one time. Our regulations stipulate that each application is rigorously reviewed by the RMM, and that it is only approved if "there’s an urgent reason or necessity" or a "good reason" for the subsequent marriages.

Recently, a community initiative called Lepak Conversations did a survey on multiple issues pertaining to gender equality. Their survey found that even though regulations here may be stricter than in other countries, many men still marry their subsequent wives abroad, ignoring the need for an approval letter from the state. In 2014, it was reported that more than 100 Singaporean men underwent a second, unregistered marriage in Indonesia.

Growing up, I remember having a conversation with one of my classmates in Primary school about how her father had decided to marry another wife in Batam against her mother’s wishes. This caused a huge financial strain on her family and her home environment grew increasingly unstable. She would come to school crying and found it difficult to concentrate on her studies.

Polygamy does not only affect the man in the relationship, it also affects women and children. In Islam, the desired outcomes to teachings are generally for us to bring good to society. However, we see that some effects of polygamy are clearly negative. While the Government cannot do much about individuals who leave Singapore to marry additional wives, the fact that polygamy is allowed under the law reinforces its cultural acceptance, serving as a justification for those who skirt the regulations.

In countries like Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Tunisia and Turkey, polygamy is banned. But if banning polygamy outright is too much for now, perhaps we can begin with some first steps. We can make the consent of the existing wife mandatory for second marriages, as is done in Indonesia. Measures must be taken to ensure that this consent is given willingly rather than under coercion.

Alternatively, we can adopt a rebuttable legal presumption that an applicant cannot be fair and/or provide equally for both his existing and potential wives. This leaves the law in place, but ends polygamy in practice.

Another option is to include an additional clause in the "automatic" standard and printed clauses in the marriage certificate, stipulating in the marriage contract that a husband cannot take another wife.

In these ways, the Government can discourage the practice more intentionally before prohibiting it completely. On top of this, measures should be put in place that discourage men from attempting to skirt the law by registering marriages abroad.

There are many contributors to gender equality and one of them is financial liberation. How do we ensure that gender does not hamper each of us from being able to support ourselves? The lack of inclusive workplaces, especially for women who wear the hijab, remains a powerful barrier to women today. The hijab, to many women, is sacred and represents a deeply personal relationship that they have with their religion. Though there are many schools of thought in Islam on the necessity of various degrees of modesty, for some, covering the head is an essential part of their Muslim identity and practice.

Earlier this year, in this House, my colleague Mr Faisal Manap brought up the very important point that COVID-19 has made it a tough time for many. People have lost their jobs or have difficulty finding employment, especially women who wear the hijab. Ms He Ting Ru rightly points out that women are disproportionately affected by this pandemic. Indeed, one resident, a nurse, approached me sharing that she felt torn that she had to choose between her faith and providing for her family.

I am glad to hear that the Government will be reviewing their position on nurses donning the hijab. There are many workplaces that still discriminate against the hijab, such as other uniformed groups. Recently, New Zealand’s police force introduced the hijab as part of its uniform. In the Royal Derby Hospital in the UK, staff receive disposable sterile headscarves, and the US army has made hijabs part of its uniform in 2017. I would like to ask the Minister when the ruling on hijabs in these spaces will be reviewed.

Why is the Government’s stance so important? The government of the day sets the tone on acceptance and tolerance at times. If our uniformed services do not pledge to create inclusive spaces, it shows Singaporeans, especially those in the private sector, that they too can discriminate. Indeed, we have evidence of this happening, such as the Tangs employee who was asked to remove her hijab to be hired as a promoter.

I understand that for some Singaporeans, the hijab may be a divisive topic. To combat this, we need to educate our society on the various forms of religious expression. Instead of hiding or pushing them aside, we must encourage Singaporeans to embrace our differences. We must interrogate our preconceived notions and stereotypes against minority races, so that we do not judge each other superficially. Only this will truly lead to the unity in diversity that we strive for as a multicultural nation.

I wish to conclude with a story that touched me while I was on one of my house visits. I met a young five-year-old girl being cared for by her grandmother whilst her parents got a much-needed break. The grandmother invited me in and made me some delicious bandung, while the girl chatted away to me, sharing with me her many interests, including her obsession with planes! She told me that one day she would like to be a pilot and fly planes high in the sky.

When I think about gender equality, I think about her and the barriers being broken down even now. Not so long ago, female pilots were non-existent and even now they are rare. But how wonderful is it to think that we have the opportunity to continue breaking down these barriers, so girls like her too can have limitless dreams.

This is what I feel is the crux of this Motion. I call all of us in this House to work towards fulfilling the aspirations of Singapore women. I support this Motion.

6.00 pm

Dr Shahira Abdullah (Nominated Member): Mdm Deputy Speaker, I come from a family full of women. Out of five children, only one is a boy. Needless to say, I grew up in an environment of outspoken females who never feared making their opinions known. Sometimes, I wonder how my brother feels being sandwiched between all these female voices.

My mother was the pillar of our family, a homemaker running a tight ship at home. She made sure we ate, did well in school, but also that we had fun. More importantly, she also instilled in us that the Malay/Muslim woman was a capable woman. She is someone who is independent, courageous and who is of value to the world.

In Islamic history, we have countless examples of inspiring women such as Khadijah, who was both a successful businesswoman and mother. Or Amra bin Al-Rahman, a well-known jurist who tutored many famous scholars and was described as a boundless ocean of knowledge.

Closer to home, according to Population Census 2020, females, in general, have advanced more rapidly in educational attainment. In addition, more Malay females are attending University as compared to Malay males. This is an encouraging development.

However, there is more that can be done to encourage and enable the success of young Malay/Muslim women. This is a cause that I feel strongly about.

In many Asian countries, women are traditionally seen to be the caregivers of society while the men take the role of the breadwinners. However, this delineation of roles has blurred with the rise of dual-income couples. The Population Census showed that dual-income couples have increased from 52.9% in 2010, to 60% last year. This increase is also reflected in the Malay community.

Nonetheless, an equal share of household responsibilities is ideal. What usually happens, though, is a role overload in which an employed woman is expected to fulfil the traditional role as a homemaker, as well as juggle her career.

In dire situations, when push comes to shove in a family, the female is also expected to sacrifice their career to assume the role of caregiver in society. In 2012, the then MCYS commissioned a survey on informal caregiving. They found more female caregivers, about 60%, as compared to male caregivers, about 40%. More recently, the MOM Report on Labour force in Singapore 2020 saw that for unemployed residents who cited caregiving as the main reason for leaving their jobs, more than two times of them are female.

Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted our economic and social activities. With more of the workforce working from home, traditional gender stereotypes have resulted in women taking on added responsibilities at home, such as taking charge of their children's home-based learning. According to McKinsey, women's jobs are 1.8 times more vulnerable in this crisis than men's jobs.

With these dire statistics, how do we ensure that our Malay/Muslim female youths are able to get the support they need to overcome these difficulties?

Firstly, I feel we should encourage mentoring for women, by women. Women should be encouraged to mentor the younger generation and support them in their endeavours. The mentoring scheme can be organised through the community self-help groups where several initiatives are already in place to create safe spaces for women, or even informal networks. The Singapore Muslim Women's Association is also embarking on its journey to create a one-stop resource space to enable women to increase their knowledge and skills in various domains: legal, religious, workforce skills and so on.

Secondly, there is a need to showcase the strong Malay/Muslim women who are already in our midst. For example, through my work with the Young Women in Leadership Dialogue (YWILD), I have met many inspiring Malay/Muslim female youths. Being a woman, much less from a minority community, may bring about its own set of challenges, but these women have shown courage and grace in the face of adversity. They also embody success in many forms, whether in academics, sports or activism.

Take Aida Saad, an artist whose art exhibitions and installations raise awareness of individuals with Down's Syndrome and allows the public to see the world through their lenses. She is feted as a rising artist by the National Arts Council. Or Nur Aziemah Azman, a former madrasah student and a graduate of the prestigious Al-Azhar University. She is currently an Associate Research Fellow at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS). Today, her mastery in multiple languages, as well as her research expertise in the domains of online extremism, international terrorism, religion and identity has given her team an edge in safeguarding Singapore's security.

YWILD also aims to provide a platform for young women in our community to have those difficult conversations regarding gender and apply it within the context and value system of the Malay/Muslim community.

Lastly, we need a whole-of-society and community mindset shift to re-educate the society on shared responsibilities in the home. Gendered expectations start from young. Therefore, we need to involve the young and old, our boys and their caregivers in this conversation too.

Just this year, The Straits Times produced a video called InstaSex that delved into the stories of teens who encountered sexual harassment and physical assault as a result of interactions on social media.

Separately, there was an online poll sexualising ustazah, or female Islamic religious teachers, with a view to committing sexual violence against them. The Internet has added a layer of anonymity that may embolden some to use it as a platform to denigrate women. These incidents should not be chalked up to people being oversensitive. These incidents should never be overlooked. This underscores the relevance and significance of the work of the Alliance for Action Committee formed to tackle online harms.

Mdm Deputy Speaker, our boys will grow up to be colleagues, husbands and fathers, and we will raise them to treat women with dignity, honour and respect. Teach them to be our allies. Teach them to not make light of casual remarks that belittle women so that it does not become normalised, and teach them to stand up to those who do. Treat the boys with compassion so that they may become compassionate boys too. Mdm Deputy Speaker, in Malay, please.

(In Malay): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] We need a whole-of-society and community mindset shift to re-educate the society on shared responsibilities in the home. Gendered expectations start from young. Therefore, we need to involve the young and old, our boys and their caregivers in this conversation too.

Our boys will grow up to be colleagues, husbands and fathers, and we will raise them to treat women with dignity, honour and respect. Teach them to be our allies. Teach them to not make light of casual remarks that belittle women, so it does not become normalised and teach them to stand up to those who do. Treat the boys with compassion so they may become compassionate boys too.

And women, we are allies of each other too. To raise each other up, we should also act in solidarity with the women from marginalised groups: the old, the differently-abled, the poor or the single mother trying her best to raise strong confident daughters of her own.

(In English): And women, we are allies of each other too. To raise each other up, we should also act in solidarity with the women from marginalised groups: the old, the differently-abled, the poor, or the single mother trying her best to raise strong confident daughters of her own.

Mdm Deputy Speaker, the mindset shift will take time. However, I am confident that the results of such efforts will be far-reaching and worthwhile, and I look forward to it. In closing, let me thank the Singapore Muslim Women's Association for their contributions to this speech.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Ms Yeo Wan Ling.

6.10 pm

Ms Yeo Wan Ling (Pasir Ris-Punggol): Mdm Deputy Speaker, there have been movements around the world throughout the decades that have sought to elevate and empower women. Yet, even then, there are certain ridges and differences within these very movements. Some invoke race; others invoke class; and sometimes, these movements discount, if not cannibalise one another. Indeed, a house divided against itself cannot stand, and this cannot be for the case of elevating and empowering women, especially in a year we have declared the Year of Celebrating SG Women.

I know even as I stand here speaking in Parliament today about a Motion on women's interests, submitted also by a woman, that we are all standing on the shoulders of giants. Broad are the shoulders of the sisters who have gone before us and there is always space for more. We welcome the solidarity the Workers' Party has shown, picking up arms to join our ongoing ascent to elevating and empowering women.

Willing to listen, willing to put in the hard work and willing to look ahead. These are principles on which the Labour Movement has moved to organise our society's resources and shake up cultural mindsets to elevate and empower our Singaporean women in the workplace. In this movement for women workers we have forged, I would like to remind us of its decades-long importance as we look to chart the next few decades to come for our women in the workplace.

On being willing to listen: the year is 1973, and women are stepping up in full force to work in paid employment roles, especially with exciting foreign direct investments flowing into Singapore. Much like today, women were going on the ascent in their own right, and the taste of empowerment gave us the confidence and momentum to traverse through barriers that might have still stood in our way.

Sister Annabella Sim, then just 21, a visionary whose form many of us take after today, became the founding chairperson of the NTUC Women's Committee and, I would say, the first female elected to our Central Committee. She said, "Through the Central Committee, I hope to bring about parity treatment with equal wage for equal work for women". Annabella and her team of unionists started their journey with an ear to the ground, consulting with working women to identify their primary concerns. They discovered that after making their first forays into the workforce, women would often leave their jobs after starting a family. This was merely what was expected of us in the household then as women. Our unionists and sisters listened, and they took to heart. This birthed out pioneering efforts by women in the Labour Movement to provide childcare support and helping women rejoin the workforce.

On being willing to put in the hard work: in response to women's waning labour force participation rates after childbirth years, Mrs Yu-Foo Yee Shoon and the unions took over and expanded the then Department of Social Welfare's 10 childcare centres. The Labour Movement started NTUC Childcare in 1977 to shoulder the burdens of women who felt the need to leave their jobs early on in their careers without support for childcare. NTUC Childcare scaled the number of these childcare centres to double-digit figures within a couple years. We drove fundraising efforts to establish new centres, as well as contended for Government subsidies to keep childcare fees easily affordable for parents.

The seed Mrs Yu-Foo had sown almost 50 years ago is what is known today as NTUC First Campus, which continues to provide affordable childcare through its 160 preschool centres island-wide and nine Primary-school-based student care centres serving more than 20,000 families.

Pioneering and building our childcare infrastructure was no small feat and this is an ongoing work-in-progress.

In 2019, our Women's Wing put up a position paper titled "Supporting Parenthood and Young Families". Our Prime Minister acknowledged the importance of a good preschool and how it provides many long-term benefits in life, and the Government has steadily improved the accessibility, affordability and quality of preschools. Childcare subsidies were further enhanced in 2020 and the number of full-day childcare and infant care centres has risen from 140,000 to 190,000. The long-term plan is to cap our preschool fees so that the full-day childcare will be the same as Primary school fees plus after student care fees.

On being willing to look ahead: in the mid-2000s, Singapore was met with a sustained shortage of labour, as well as an ageing population problem looming around the corner. Not only was this a golden opportunity for us to usher women back into the workforce, but it needed to be delicately balanced with strong support for women to start families. The Labour Movement has helped women re-enter the workplace as early as the 1990s, and through the years, we have evolved our programmes to keep with the zeitgeist of the times. As the Director of the Women’s Programme back then, our President Halimah Yacob and the Women’s Committee started a Back-to-Work (B2W) Programme in 2007 to create new opportunities for women in the workplace. The programme, with a robust strategy, including recruitment, re-adjustment and retention plans for women’s return to the workforce, was intended for the benefit of future generations.

With its introduction, we saw the consolidation of best practices in training, counselling and job placements, as well as the promotion of flexible work arrangements. With these best practices, we fuelled the Employment and Employability Institute to do its good work in matching workers and employers. With this forward-looking vision, we promoted companies to provide facilities for breastfeeding mothers. Over the years, the Back2Work Programme has helped more than 28,000 women return to work and provided training to more than 30,000 women.

Today, building and evolving on the work the Labour Movement has advocated for, flexible work arrangements are the new norm, and we continue to work with our tripartite partners to implement and redesign jobs to enable women to return to work. Companies such as Le Essen, a catering and canteen operator, now have 50% of their workforce comprising women returning to work on redesigned flexible work hours.

Indeed, in the area of workplace harassment, the tripartite partners have also drawn up a tripartite advisory on managing workplace harassment. NTUC has also developed a workplace harassment prevention policy to be adopted and adapted by companies and, indeed, both are promoted by TAFEP. For progressive companies with the Labour Movement family, they are guided by workplace harassment clauses in their collective agreements. Our unions and women leaders represent both women and men in harassment and grievance cases. But the work does not stop here. We continue to listen, work hard and prepare for the new work norms. We are only eating the fruits of the trees planted by those who have come before us and we will continue to plant trees for those to come.

The enterprise, tenacity and vision of our women who had gone before us, indeed, lay the foundation for the work we continue today and we are glad to have reinforcements even across party lines to continue their good work. As we consider the Motion filed for a whole-of-society approach in empowering women, we say "Let us do it". And let us continue to do it the way we have been doing it for years – being willing to listen, willing to put in the hard work and willing to look ahead. These core principles will continue to shape our success.

Decades later, though the challenges women face have evolved in form due to the myriad opportunities made available to women, we must continue to put our ears to the ground, be good listeners and be able to roll with the punches. Policy measures that look good on paper sometimes only look good because they are overly convenient and fail to consider repercussions downstream. To this, we say let us continue to innovate solutions and undertake them even if they seem difficult, because that is the diligence our women deserve.

Finally, let us be willing to look ahead together and not be transfixed on the quick-fix, but the long game. While whole societies begin to elevate and empower women, women begin to elevate whole societies to greater heights than before. Welcome to the movement.

6.20 pm

Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song (Aljunied): Mdm Deputy Speaker, I strongly support the Motion moved by Ms He Ting Ru and Mr Leon Perera that this House affirms that gender equality requires a whole-of-society effort to remove all barriers in order to empower every woman to freely realise her full potential and participation in society.

I would like to focus on three areas that I believe will bring us closer towards achieving gender equality in Singapore: residency and benefits for foreign spouses, support for single parents and flexible work arrangements.

According to an answer to a Parliamentary Question (PQ) I asked last September, in the six months from February to July 2020, the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) received 8,395 applications for extensions of Short-Term Visit Passes (STVPs) from foreign spouses of Singaporeans. This was an increase of almost 2,000 applications from the year before. These extensions are typically for one to three months, but some are reportedly as short as one or two weeks. While the vast majority of applications are approved, over 250 were rejected during the six-month period last year.

A number of my constituents have sought assistance regarding renewals of STVPs and applications for Long-Term Visit Passes (LTVPs) for their foreign spouses. I am sure many Members would have also submitted such appeals to ICA.

In the majority of cases that I have come across, the foreign spouse is a woman. They face the uncertainty and anxiety of being separated from their Singaporean husbands and, in some cases, their children as well, if their passes are not renewed.

I have also noticed that almost all of the residents who have approached me for assistance with their spouses’ visas are from lower-income households. Applications for STVP extensions cost $40 for every three months of stay. While it might not seem much, this adds up over time. More importantly, their spouses’ immigration worries often add to their daily stresses of life.

To reduce the immigration-related stressors faced by Singapore Citizens and their foreign spouses, I propose the creation of a more streamlined path towards obtaining LTVP, LTVP+ and PR status and, eventually, citizenship for such spouses.

There are strong reasons for such a policy. For example, given that a quarter of marriages here are between a Singaporean and a non-resident, transnational marriages will continue to be an important contributor to family formation in Singapore. As such, fast-tracking parents and potential parents of Singaporean children for citizenship would facilitate the formation of stable family units with a full stake in Singapore.

Towards this end, the primary consideration for PR applications by LTVP holders who have a Singaporean spouse or child, should be their family ties and rootedness in Singapore and not just their income or occupation. Their close family relationship with Singaporeans makes them part of the Singapore Core and we should facilitate, not inhibit, their integration into our society.

I am aware that not all foreign spouses may immediately qualify for PR status. However, foreigners who have entered into a bona fide marriage with a Singapore citizen should be granted LTVP status by default. I have constituents who have been married to foreigners for over a year and are still unable to obtain an LTVP for them. They need to continually renew their spouse’s STVPs, with no certainty of approval each time.

One constituent told me of his desire to have children with his wife but he has shelved those plans because he is worried that his wife may be forced to leave Singapore if her pass is not extended, leading to a separation from any children they might have. Madam, our citizens and their foreign spouses deserve a better assurance of their place in Singapore.

Next, I would like to appeal for the Government to raise the level of support currently given to single parents, so that they and their children are not disadvantaged in our society. In a speech in 2013, I outlined the burdens faced by single parents who have to take on the role of both father and mother and perform caregiving duties while also holding on to a job to pay the bills. Compounding their challenges, they are denied some of the parenthood benefits that married, divorced and widowed parents receive. This could add to their feeling of marginalisation from society.

Since single mothers make up the bulk of single parents, changes to policies to support single parents will disproportionately benefit women. My former Parliamentary colleagues, in particular, Ms Lee Li Lian, as well as Assoc Prof Daniel Goh, Mr Png Eng Huat, and current Members Mr Muhamad Faisal Bin Abdul Manap, Mr Dennis Tan, Mr Leon Perera and others, have repeatedly advocated for greater support for single parents over the past eight years.

Government benefits and housing options for single unmarried parents and their children should be the same as for any other family unit. The distinction that the Government often makes between single unmarried parents and divorced parents, in terms of the benefits provided, should be removed.

To be clear, we should not encourage single parenthood or having children outside of marriage, any more than we encourage divorce. It is hard enough raising children with both parents, let alone by oneself. However, once a woman has made the brave choice to carry her child to term despite not having the support of a spouse and likely family disapproval, we, as a society, must do all we can to support her. We should not make things more difficult for her by denying her benefits available to other parents.

We must also be mindful that unequal benefits inadvertently penalise the innocent children of single unmarried parents, who are often in need of greater support. According to a reply to a PQ by Mr Louis Ng, the median monthly income from work of single, unmarried mothers below the age of 35 was just $600 in 2017, which was 86% less than the national median income that year.

Currently, many single parents are not eligible to buy or rent a subsidised HDB flat to live with their children. What this means in practice – and I have seen this among my constituents – is that they and their children have to squeeze into a flat with their parents, close relatives or friends. However, this is an inherently unstable arrangement. If they fall out with their family members or are estranged from their families – as some are – they risk having nowhere to stay. Renting a flat in the open market is seldom a realistic option as it is prohibitively expensive. Singles below the age of 35 do not qualify to purchase HDB flats or rent flats under the Public Rental Scheme.

I note that HDB has said that it will exercise flexibility in allowing unmarried parents to buy a 3-room or smaller flat in a non-mature estate from HDB, or a resale flat, and that those who cannot afford to buy a flat may be considered for public rental flats. I would like to see this made the default for all single parents so that they are not denied a roof over their heads, and their children have a safe and homely environment to grow up in.

Single parents awaiting the construction of their BTO flats should also be allowed to rent a flat under the Parenthood Provisional Housing Scheme (PPHS), which is currently available only to married couples, divorcees or the widowed.

All single parents and their children are a family in every sense of the word and should be considered a family nucleus by HDB for the purpose of purchasing or renting flats.

Some single parents who are divorcees also continue to face difficulties getting their monthly maintenance from their former spouses. The Government introduced the Maintenance Record Office (MRO) scheme in 2016 to assist the Courts in identifying those who refuse to pay even though they have the means to do so, so that the Courts can impose penalties on them. Mr Leon Perera previously asked in 2017 if MSF could provide a mechanism for spouses to request an investigation of the MRO without having to go through the Court process. I hope the Ministry will give consideration to this proposal as it reviews the MRO programme.

I should also mention that we should give single fathers the same benefits as single mothers, as they face very similar challenges as single mothers in raising their children alone. The Women’s Charter was changed in 2016 to allow men to apply for alimony. However, this is only possible if he is incapacitated and, therefore, unable to work. This high bar should be removed. A man should be allowed to apply for maintenance from his ex-wife if he has custody of their children and has a much lower earning power than her.

The final point I wish to raise relates to work arrangements. I call for companies to redouble their efforts to make flexible work arrangements available to employees who can and wish to work from home. The Government can do its part to nudge enterprises in this direction through tax incentives and by leading the way through Civil Service human resource policies.

I recently met an elderly constituent at the wake of her deceased husband. As was my usual practice, I asked if she was in need of any assistance. I was glad to hear that she was doing fine as she was able to continue working from home because of the arrangements made by her enlightened employer.

Her employer couriers her work to her flat daily and picks it up from her the next morning after she has completed it. This way, despite her inability to walk very far unassisted, she can still apply her skills and earn some income to support herself.

I believe that more businesses should explore such flexible work arrangements to meet their manpower needs while providing employment to those who can only work from home. This will empower many women with caregiving responsibilities, not to mention older workers and those with mobility issues. There are many women as well as some men who make the difficult choice to stop work temporarily to care for their young children or elderly parents. Very often, this dilemma could have been avoided if more companies allowed their employees to work from home.

One silver lining of the COVID-19 pandemic is that it has forced many companies to digitalise and make work-from-home arrangements. This has been helpful for many caregivers who need to look after their young children or elderly parents.

However, once Singapore starts to reopen, many companies may start summoning their workers back to the office. I hope companies will not forgo their digital gains this way. Companies should assess which jobs can be performed as productively at home as in the office and give employees a choice of working remotely.

The labour force participation rate of women trails 14% behind men. The gap starts to form for women starting from their mid-20s– the age when they start having children – and continues to increase throughout their childbearing years, with a peak of some 25% behind men of the same age. This could point to what is known as the "child penalty", which could have a negative impact on a woman’s earning power and retirement adequacy. Even with work-from-home arrangements, SMU sociologist Aliya Rao found that women bear a greater burden of handling both paid work as well as unpaid work of managing the household. This is a point that Ms He Ting Ru also made earlier.

The key point here is flexibility. We need to promote a work environment that is more understanding of the various roles that mothers and fathers desire to play and avoid forcing them to choose one role over the other. This will enable many more parents to continue pursuing their careers while providing for themselves and caring for their families.

In summary, Madam, I call for the streamlining of immigration procedures for foreign spouses of Singapore Citizens to strengthen the Singapore Core; for more support to be extended to single unmarried parents; and for policies to promote flexible work arrangements, all of which will benefit both women and men. Madam, I support the Motion.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Minister of State Desmond Tan.

6.33 pm

The Minister of State for Home Affairs (Mr Desmond Tan): Thank you, Mdm Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to make a clarification to Member Raeesah Khan, who made a reference during her speech about mishandling in a case by the Police of an investigation involving a sexual victim.

I would like to seek some clarification from her in terms of the details because we take this very seriously. Any form of questions raised about how the Police have handled or mishandled this case should be investigated. I would like to request for her to provide us more details so that we can investigate this issue.

Secondly, we also noticed that she has raised quite a few questions just now about information as well as suggestions about how this case has to be handled and also, even through this one incident, suggested that the Police have to improve their training.

For such questions, we would like to request that she gives us specific details, even through a Parliamentary Question, so that this can be looked into and we can give her a proper answer for these questions.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Ms Raeesah Khan.

Ms Raeesah Khan: Thank you for those clarifications. Like I mentioned, it was three years ago and I do not wish to re-traumatise the person that I had accompanied. But I have to say that these anecdotes are not isolated. Perhaps, this can start further discussions on how victims or survivors are treated after they make reports. This may not just be when they make reports to the Police but it can also be how they make reports to other institutions.

Sorry, what was your second point?

Mr Desmond Tan: I had requested that if you have specific questions or requests for information, you should file a proper Parliamentary Question so that we can provide the data to you properly.

Ms Raeesah Khan: Okay. Thank you very much.

Mr Desmond Tan: I would also like to say that you have made a very serious allegation of the mishandling by Police in the House through your speech and we take this seriously. We would like to have the details so that we can look into it and not just have this swept aside.

I know that it is not going to be easy for you or even for the victim to go through this. But from the Police's point of view, you have just made a very important allegation and we would like to have the details to look into it further.

Ms Raeesah Khan: Sure. Thanks.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Leader.

Debate resumed

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Ms Tin Pei Ling.

6.37 pm

Ms Tin Pei Ling (MacPherson): Mdm Deputy Speaker, this is a meaningful debate in support of Singapore women and I support the amended Motion.

Since I entered this House in 2011, I have heard many suggestions made by fellow Members of Parliament and have also seen real policy changes being implemented to resolve pain points and provide stronger support to Singapore women.

I was listening intently to the speeches of hon Member Ms He Ting Ru and several of the Workers' Party Members earlier and found their points made to be quite similar to the suggestions made by my fellow PAP Members of Parliament over the years.

For instance, Ms He Ting Ru today asked for greater representation of females at the leadership level for greater diversity of views. Indeed, in 2017, several Members of this House, including Mdm Deputy Speaker yourself, hon Members Mr Vikram Nair, Mr Alex Yam, Mr Louis Ng and several others have called for the same.

Ms He Ting Ru also raised the point on CPF transfers. This was also a point that was raised by several of our Members, including Ms Joan Pereira, former Member of Parliament Er Dr Lee Bee Wah, Dr Intan Azura Mokhtar, in 2017 and there were several efforts before that as well.

There was also a suggestion or a call for the gender-neutral CareShield Life premium. I think this one – several Members, including myself – also called for this in 2018 and, again, in 2019.

So, indeed, I am very heartened to observe this because this reinforces the recommendations that we had put forth as well, as we all desire to support Singapore women in realising their fullest potential.

I am also heartened that, so far, nobody has objected to the amendments as moved by hon Member Mr Vikram Nair. I, therefore, take it that it is a recognition that we need to go beyond this debate and have it translated into something that is actionable for the future, as set out in the upcoming White Paper.

Indeed, this House has, over the past six to seven decades, seen many exchanges and recommendations on how we can empower and advance Singapore women. Minister of State Sun Xueling earlier recounted the key milestones in this long journey towards removing barriers and empowering Singapore women.

More recently, in 2017, I, together with fellow PAP women Members of Parliament – Mdm Deputy Speaker Jessica Tan, Miss Cheryl Chan, Ms Joan Pereira and former Member of Parliament Er Dr Lee Bee Wah – moved a Private Members' Motion titled "Aspirations of Women".

I was heartened that 18 Members of the House, including me, spoke on this important cause and that our Ministers and Ministers of State gave so much of their time to address our concerns and recommendations, and echoed their support for the aspirations of Singapore women. I certainly appreciated the interest and support from the Workers' Party in the 2017 Motion debate as well.

Through the two-day debate, colleagues and I articulated and elaborated on the four strategies that we believed were critical to supporting Singapore women in their aspirational pursuits. Let me briefly sum up.

The first strategy was to create capacity. We agreed that, as of the current reality, the primary caregiving role was still undertaken by women and, therefore, we called for more support to our caregivers, including enhancing availability and access to care options so as to free up women's capacity to pursue their aspirations, career- or social-wise. Colleagues who called for this included Ms Joan Pereira, Miss Cheryl Chan and Minister of State Sun Xueling.

At the same time, we called for platforms and cogent programmes to refresh and build new capabilities to help back-to-work women because these expand their capacities to pursue the diverse aspirations that they may have. Ms Jessica Tan, Ms Joan Pereira, Mr Darryl David, Dr Intan Azura Mokhtar and Parliamentary Secretary Rahayu Mahzam spoke very passionately on this in 2017.

The second strategy was to provide options for women so that ladies with career aspirations do not have to feel that they need to sacrifice or feel guilty about having to juggle different roles and feel inadequate at any point in time. A wide range of recommendations, including flexible work arrangements, were raised by almost all the Members of Parliament who spoke. In addition, Miss Cheryl Chan and Mr Darryl David called for progressive human resource policies and practices to complement the many recommendations put forth.

Members of Parliament, such as Ms Joan Pereira, Er Dr Lee Bee Wah, Parliamentary Secretary Rahayu Mahzam, Mr Alex Yam and Dr Intan Azura Mokhtar, called for CPF top-ups for women who gave up their careers to stay at home to care for their family members. I should add that this recommendation was also something that the PAP Women's Wing pushed for in 2015 and we called it "Top Up with Love".

Also, from this year, the Matched Retirement Savings Scheme was also implemented.

The third strategy was to remove barriers, especially the ones that were often stereotypical and pigeonhole women in Singapore. Members, including Ms Jessica Tan, Mr Vikram Nair, Mr Alex Yam and Mr Louis Ng spoke passionately about how women were under-represented at the board and executive levels and how we should also drive up women's participation and leadership within the community.

But to do so, we need to recognise the stereotypes and biases constraining women in those different roles. Mr Darryl David, Mr Louis Ng, Dr Intan Azura Mokhtar and, certainly, Mr Leon Perera talked about the need to shift the care burden to have a more equal sharing of care duties between men and women, whether it is at the workplace, in the family or even within the social setting.

At the same time, Ms Jessica Tan also reminded everyone to be conscious of our unconscious bias so that women will not be inevitably disadvantaged from the start of recruitment.

The fourth strategy was to be future-ready – to have smart women for a smart nation – something that I felt and continue to be passionate about.

We called for digital fluency, the use of smart solutions to create capacity and empowering women with science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education so that they are well-positioned for the job opportunities in growth sectors and leap towards closing that gender pay gap. This recommendation is again reiterated in the paper jointly authored by the PAP Women's Wing and Young PAP submitted this year.

Taken together, the debate demonstrated from both sides of the House our support for the aspirations of Singapore women and the willingness of this Government to support likewise.

Between the debate in 2017 till now, I am encouraged to observe several positive developments. For instance, the number of home care and day care places increased to 10,300 and 9,000 respectively in 2019, exceeding the 2020 targets announced in 2017 back then. Infant care centres increased from 512 in 2017 to 661 in 2020, and childcare centres increased from 1,389 in 2017 to 1,542 in 2020. To facilitate inter-generational bonding, the first inter-generational playground and infant and childcare centre within a nursing home was launched in late 2017. Since then, we have witnessed eldercare and childcare facilities being co-located in new HDB estates. MacPherson Spring in my constituency is an example. I believe such co-location of facilities offers much convenience to caregivers taking care of the young and old in their families.

Of course, in addition to increasing the availability of these care places, subsidies also play a very important role to help making it a lot more accessible to working fathers and mothers. In this respect, I am glad to note that childcare, infant care subsidies have been enhanced in 2020, that is, last year.

On flexible work arrangements, we know from a January 2021 written Parliamentary response to Mr Christopher de Souza that the vast majority of employees today, including caregivers, have access to flexible work arrangements (FWAs). In 2019, about 85% of employers offered some form of FWAs and this number increased during the COVID-19 period. As of end-November 2020, more than 8,000 companies adopted the Tripartite Standard on FWAs, up from under 2,000 companies a year ago.

Could we still do more? Certainly! That is why many colleagues, like Dr Tan Wu Meng, for example, today continue to champion this, as evident by his Parliamentary Questions in this House just earlier today.

In empowering more girls with STEM education, I am encouraged that female representation in Information Technology courses in local Universities has increased from 28% in 2017 to 35% in 2019. Still room for improvement, but making progress. And pushing further to avail Singapore women of good career opportunities, the PAP called for greater help for women to secure jobs in growth sectors as we recognise that there are tech-lite jobs suitable for those without a STEM background within the tech sector, and demand for workers remains strong in the care and green economy.

Mdm Deputy Speaker, please allow me to speak in Mandarin.

(In Mandarin): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] Mdm Deputy Speaker, I am glad to participate in the debate on this meaningful Motion today. I support the amended Motion. The contributions of Singapore women to the family, community and country are evident to all.

Since I entered Parliament in 2011, I have heard many suggestions from my colleagues on issues related to support for women in Singapore. I have also witnessed the implementation of Government policies to help women in Singapore achieve greater progress.

In 2017, I had the honour to move a Motion with four of my fellow Members of Parliament in Parliament on how to help Singaporean women realise their aspirations. With 13 other Members of Parliament, we engaged in a two-day debate.

The debate in 2017 outlined four key strategies.

First, create and strengthen frameworks and services to share the burden of caregivers and free up time for them to better balance their multiple roles.

Second, to promote flexible work arrangements and give them options to care for their families without sacrificing their careers.

Third, encourage society and businesses to value women's economic potential and contributions.

Fourth, promote skills training for women in science and technology to prepare them for the digital age and the future economy.

Of course, the suggestions put forward were not confined to women. My colleagues and I had hoped to seek your support through the Motion to support our women with concrete actions. This will no doubt strengthen Singapore's foundations and help Singaporeans, both men and women, to develop their potential and prepare for the future together.

Since 2017, we have made progress in many areas, including eldercare, childcare, flexible work arrangements and digital education and training. For example, the number of home care places has increased 30% between 2017 and 2019, while day care and childcare places rose by 80% and 11% respectively in the same period. Childcare subsidy was also raised this year.

For more than 60 years, we have been fighting for more support for women. Today's Motion is built on this solid foundation and is an added effort.

With each wave of industrial revolution, renewal of skills in the workplace, changes in the general environment and societal attitudes, we have to keep up with the changes and make corresponding adjustments. I believe this is why the Government announced last year that it would jointly organise Conversations on Singapore Women’s Development with partners in the private and public sectors, and consolidate the recommendations into a White Paper which will be submitted to Parliament this year.

In response, the PAP submitted 12 recommendations to the Government last week to promote women’s development. AWARE and the Workers' Party have also submitted their proposals.

Clearly, the contributions of Singapore women to the family and society cannot be overlooked. We must press on to support women in realising their potential and aspirations. Hence, I look forward to the release of the White Paper.

(In English): This journey to support Singapore women fulfil their fullest potential and aspirations is not new. Even as I speak of the 2017 debate, there were many others before me in this House who had championed the cause. Likewise, today’s Motion adds to the journey. And I am glad that we are building on this firm foundation.

There are many things we can still do to support Singapore women. As the broader environment changes, as demographics and societal attitudes shift, we need to adjust, too. Hence, our endeavour to support Singapore women must continue. And I believe that it is in this spirit that the Government is tabling a White Paper later this year.

Contributing to this White Paper, the PAP submitted our recommendations to the Government last week. Likewise, AWARE and WP have put forth theirs. But even as we continue to co-create these solutions, I believe it is important that this House affirms the familial, social and economic contributions of Singapore women and our support for them to fulfil their aspirations and societal participation, and we look forward to the White Paper.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Ms Sylvia Lim.

6.52 pm

Ms Sylvia Lim (Aljunied): Mdm Deputy Speaker, the Motion calls for a whole-of-society approach to remove barriers that impede women from free participation in society. I would like to focus my speech on female participation in political leadership.

Question: how does Singapore fare right now in women political leadership?

I believe we all accept that women must be a big part of this House. Women must not just be a big part of this House; women should hold leadership positions in Government and in political parties. Over the years, this House has seen progress. For decades before 1984, the House was all male. After the 1984 General Elections, three women were elected on the ruling party ticket – Dr Aline Wong, Dr Dixie Tan and Mrs Yu-Foo Yee Shoon. They made up about 3% of the total number of Members of Parliament. Today, the House is touching 30% women, a 10-fold increase. We have female Ministers, we had a female Speaker, we continue to have female Leaders of the House.

How are we doing if we compare ourselves globally? The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) puts out a country ranking of the percentage of females in national legislatures. Singapore, with its nearly 30% female Members of Parliament, is ranked 54th in the world. When one looks at the countries above Singapore, they are an incredibly diverse mix of countries at different stages of development. Singapore lags significantly behind the Nordic countries as well as Rwanda and the UAE which have between 40% and 61% of women legislators. We are doing slightly better than the USA at 27% and about on par with Germany and Australia which are at 31%.

When one looks at the list of countries with high proportions of women legislators, one will notice that certain countries which are not known for gender equality seem to be high on the list. Therefore, while the numbers matter, we should not have women fill places in Parliaments for its own sake, if they do not play a meaningful role. Let me take an analogy from the corporate world.

The Singapore Government has been advocating that boards of companies should aim to have 30% of women directors. In order to reach 30%, some family-run companies may be tempted to appoint female family members, but that would not be meaningful if these women did not exercise independent decision-making.

To that end, it is somewhat reassuring to see that in Singapore politics, there is an increased presence of women playing influential roles. There are more female Ministers in Cabinet than ever before, helming Ministries. But we want to see more. There are also more female opposition Members of Parliament than ever before. We want to see more of them, too.

But what will it take to increase the pool of able and willing female Singaporeans entering the forefront of politics? Any political leader in Singapore will know that it is more difficult to find women to stand as candidates in Parliamentary elections.

I count myself fortunate that I did not face any family or societal pressures when I decided to join the Workers’ Party 20 years ago. Not having a spouse or children, I did not need to agonise over how the family would cope without me at home at night, or how their lives and morale would be affected by nasty media headlines and the testy exchanges that take place in this House from time to time. As for my parents, they are persons of great fortitude. My mother is a retired nurse who has seen life-and-death emergencies. As for my late father, he simply laughed it off on learning that I had joined the Workers’ Party, saying, and I quote: "Congratulations. You are one step closer to prison". I consider myself fortunate.

Other women are not so free. Time and again, we find potential female candidates who are unable to freely decide whether to stand as candidates, compared to males who seem to have fewer inhibitions. I believe the Workers’ Party is not unique in this experience. Women, especially those with young children, are burdened with worry and even guilt, wanting to be there for their families at key moments of their children’s development. The expectations of family members, particularly parents and parents-in-law, add more pressure to mothers. Employers, too, may doubt a working mother’s ability to cope with her work and political responsibilities as well. I do not notice such pressure and apprehension in my dealings with potential male candidates.

I should clarify, at this point, that I am not saying that a woman who decides that her family is the most important thing to her is somehow under-achieving or under-contributing. Far from it. What I am saying is that we should empower women to freely make these choices. Women should be confident that, in their ecosystem, family responsibilities are shared. They should be confident that their contributions to the wider society are cheered and supported, and not seen as derelictions of their duties as mothers, daughters and daughters-in-law.

Some countries have tried to boost female participation in their legislatures through the imposition of legal quotas. I am personally very wary of going down this route, which has led to some perverse outcomes elsewhere. I learned of this a few years ago when I was part of a Commonwealth delegation observing a national election on the African continent. Several female politicians shared that their experience with legal quotas had not been good. Their national elections had proportional representation systems of affirmative action for women. Political parties would put up lists of female candidates, who would be assured of entering Parliament depending on their party’s overall vote share at the polls. Unfortunately, in some instances, women who wished to be prioritised on the list were subjugated to the whimsical decision-making of their male party leaders, including acceding to humiliating demands. We should not go down this route of legal quotas.

On the other hand, more countries seem to have had sustainable success with soft targets or aspirational quotas. These voluntary targets serve as benchmarks to aim towards, without being overly rigid in application. Some countries saw political parties voluntarily setting party quotas, promising the electorate that they would field at least a certain percentage of women candidates. This happened due to political competition, as political parties jostled to gain support from a more demanding electorate and, especially, from female voters.

Although political parties in Singapore have not announced any voluntary quotas of women candidates, my observation is that the parties are, indeed, conscious of the need to field at least a minimum proportion of women. Let me cite some numbers. If we look at the last General Election, on the ruling party side, nearly 27% of the candidates were women, while on the Workers’ Party side, nearly 24% were women. After Polling Day, female PAP Members of Parliament formed about 29% of PAP Members of Parliament, while female WP Members of Parliament formed 30% of WP Members of Parliament. As for the Progress Singapore Party, they fielded about 21% of female candidates and, after Polling Day, two Non-Constituency Members of Parliament were elected – one man and one woman.

At the decision-making levels of the parties, the Central Executive Committees (CECs) of both the PAP and the WP are still male-dominated, but to different degrees at the moment. The PAP has three female CEC members out of 18, making up about 17%. The WP CEC has four women out of 14, making up 29%; though this is a vast improvement from the 14% we had previously, I am most mindful that this gain is precarious and can easily unravel. The PSP has five women out of a 14-member CEC, a healthy 36%. When it comes to the Cabinet, we see three female Ministers out of 20, which is 15%. It seems to me that all political parties can put in more effort to try to raise the levels of female participation in leadership.

I am cautiously optimistic that we may not need to adopt even voluntary quotas to improve the situation. As has happened in other countries, the element of competition amongst political parties in Singapore will also result in the need for parties to field more women candidates and promote women leadership. The electorate will be watching us.

However, given the social context, it will not be an easy slog unless the whole of society embraces policies which make it conducive for women to step up to the political forefront. I now turn to the relevance of gender equality in society to fostering increased female participation in politics.

Madam, the Motion posits that there is a link between gender equality and the empowerment of women to freely realise their full potential. It is thus relevant to ask whether a society that nurtures a gender-neutral culture will organically see more women in politics.

Gender equality assessments across countries are regularly done, and there are reports and rankings of gender gaps worldwide. For instance, in March this year, the World Bank published the Global Gender Gap Report 2021. This report assesses gender gaps in countries across four fields – political empowerment, economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, and health and survival.

Of all the four fields assessed, political empowerment is the one with the largest gender gap worldwide. If one looks at the top 10 countries deemed to be the most gender neutral, one sees that eight out of these 10 are also in the top 25 for female representation in their parliaments. These include the usual suspects such as the Nordic countries, as well as New Zealand, Namibia and Rwanda. According to this gender gap assessment, Singapore was 54th globally, coincidentally the same ranking we received on the percentage of female representation in Parliament.

An academic study of 36 European countries was published last year which attempted to test certain hypotheses as to why countries might have higher or lower percentages of women in their parliaments. The study tested two hypotheses – the first was whether higher percentages of women parliamentarians were found in richer countries measured by GDP per capita; the second was whether the proportion of women parliamentarians was co-related with the country's character as measured on a Masculinity Index.

The Masculinity Index was determined based on a variety of factors such as: the importance of money, high economic growth as a priority, men earning more than women and traditional family structures. Such masculine traits were to be contrasted with the Femininity Index which valued caring for others and the quality of life. Singapore was ranked in the middle of this scale. The study found that a higher proportion of women in parliament was strongly co-related with a country's wealth but also with a low score on the Masculinity Index. Three Nordic countries – Norway, Finland and Sweden – exemplify this.

Madam, it stands to reason that a society with a culture of gender equality will be more conducive to women being empowered to make free choices, including the choice to devote oneself to political service. For instance, more equal sharing of childcare and eldercare responsibilities will ease decision-making for women. Wage levels should be comparable for equivalent work, so that it may make economic sense for husbands to decide to work part-time or not at all. Flexible work arrangements will unlock possibilities. The list goes on.

Singapore should continue in this direction if we wish to see sustained streams of women contributing to their full potential, including those who will step forward to serve as political candidates, Members of Parliament and Ministers.

In order to attract more women into political leadership, we need all segments of society to work together to build a gender-equal ecosystem. Government, employers, employees, business and family must buy-in to this vision, in order that our wives, mothers and daughters can fulfil their aspirations and contribute to public life if they wish to.

Madam, over the weekend, some of us might have been fixated with watching world-class athletes compete at the Tokyo Olympics. One of the moments that moved me greatly was the victory ceremony for a relatively new event in swimming – the four by 100m mixed medley relay. It was so refreshing to see the teams of four swimmers at the victory podium – two men and two women – showing the world the glory that their combined effort had brought to their countries. Each of them, man, and woman, was equally critical in achieving the team's success. That is the spirit in which the whole of society can collaborate in the national interest.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Assoc Prof Jamus Lim.

7.06 pm

Assoc Prof Jamus Jerome Lim (Sengkang): Mdm Deputy Speaker, others in this House have shared about why a society that is not truly gender-neutral is problematic from a political, social and cultural perspective. Allow me, if I may, to contribute to this discussion from the economic point of view.

Unsurprisingly, discrimination of any form, whether on the basis of race, religion or gender, entails not just visible costs to the social and moral fabric of society, it also embeds hidden or, at least, under-appreciated, costs for the functioning of our economy. In this speech, I wish to bring some of these potentially hidden costs to light.

There is now a substantial body of evidence pointing to the importance of gender equality for economic development.

Economic historians have argued that one of the important contributors to the Great Divergence, when European Civilization was able to overtake Qing China, Mughal India and Tokugawa Japan, and the difference was the so-called "European Marriage Pattern": a pattern of delayed female marriage, elevated female celibacy and the formation of small, nuclear-family households. The idea is that by improving the position of women, this pattern increases both labour force participation and encourages greater investment in human capital, which serves to promote long-term economic growth.

This argument has since been rigorously tested against data from around the world and the results are clear: greater gender equality tends to be associated with higher growth. Remarkably, the relationship works both ways: not only does empowering women benefit development, but development, in and of itself, can also be a force for suppressing gender inequality, which holds the potential for a virtuous circle of ever-greater empowerment, followed by development.

Remarkably, this insight that gender equality and female empowerment are a force for economic progress was most pithily expressed not by a paragon of capitalism, but by an icon of communism. In encouraging women to pursue education and work outside of home, Chairman Mao Zedong famously proclaimed that, 妇女能顶半边天 or, literally, "women hold up half the sky", an allusion to how women can, and do, contribute mightily to the success of the economic endeavours of a nation.

Closer to home, Singapore has, like many Newly Industrialised Economies (NIEs) in East Asia, steadily improved the extent to which women are engaged as productive members of the economy. Between 1990 and 2019, for example, the female labour force participation rate has risen from around 45% in 1990, to around 62% in 2019, the latest year that data are available and, unfortunately, a number that differs from Minister of State Sun Xueling's earlier citation, unless I misheard, of 76%. This represents an increase of a little less than a third, which is notable, nevertheless, for an advanced economy.

It is also significantly higher than rates among our NIE peers, which average closer to 53%, and also surpasses that of developed southern European nations such as Greece and Italy, where participation hovers in the low to mid-forties. Clearly, we have, even in more recent times, managed to encourage the entry of women into formal employment.

Alas, this impressive quantitative success masks some deeper, and possibly more worrisome, pathology.

For starters, participation has trended slightly down over the past five years. To be clear, I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, suggesting that women should always seek to increase their engagement in the workforce, come what may. Indeed, some retreat from working life may well be a calculated choice, reflecting a desire to spend more time in homemaking or the pursuit of other interests, such as hobbies or philanthropy, which may be enabled by higher incomes from the main breadwinner.

But we should not be blind to the possibility that some of the fastest growing sectors, such as technology, finance and data science, are famously male-dominated, and reduced participation could be symptomatic of the difficulty that women face in breaking into such lucrative professions, thereby inhibiting the further expansion of labour market entry by women.

Furthermore, there remains a significant imbalance in the participation rates of men versus women. Over the same period, the male participation rate continued to outstrip that of women, ranging between 78% and 79% over the past three decades. Put another way, the ratio of female-to-male labour force participation is around 0.79, substantially below Scandinavian countries, where the ratio is closer to 0.9. So, we know that greater egalitarianism is eminently possible.

Another reason that constrains further participation by Singaporean women is that they are still often expected to take on the primary responsibilities of caregiving and housework in the family. Hence, asking women to hold down a job and advance in their careers, while also taking on domestic work, effectively consigns women to a double shift, or equivalently, juggling two jobs. Often, the added burden compels them to either leave the workforce or reduce their hours to part-time employment.

The numbers corroborate this story: in Singapore, 83.4% of married men were employed in 2017, while in contrast, only 63.3% of married women stayed in the workforce. By a similar token, women are over-represented in part-time jobs. For that same year, women accounted for 64% of part-time labour force participation, almost twice as many as men, who accounted for the remaining 36%.

This latter statistic underscores the main obstacle preventing greater female labour force participation – time constraints. Of course, working part-time could well be a lifestyle choice I alluded to earlier, which should be available regardless of gender. But with only 47% of firms in Singapore offering full-time, flexible work arrangements, many women find themselves taking on part-time jobs not necessarily by choice, but rather because their employer either refuses or fails to offer alternatives that would allow them to continue working full-time, especially after the birth of the child. In my meetings with residents, I have had many women express difficulty in convincing their employer to agree to more flexible work arrangements, which relegates them effectively to part-time status.

A third force may discourage women from entering the labour force with more vigour: the gender pay gap. In Singapore, this income differential is around average compared to other industrialised economies, at 16.3%. To put this number in context though, this gap implies that, to a worker earning the median salary over a 40-year career, this discount experienced by women amounts to around a little more than a third of $1 million.

Of course, women's career choices and progression paths, based on differences in personality and preferences, along with the values placed on workplace flexibility and societal norms surrounding certain gender roles do affect this difference. To compare durians to durians, it is necessary to account for these observable and explainable differences. Doing so turns out to half the gap to around 6%. This is smaller, but still non-trivial; after all, this is the average annual increment over two to three years, which never goes away.

Furthermore, we do ourselves a disservice if we simply accept that wage differences can be accounted for and, hence, excusable. After all, as I explained above, a desire for flexibility should be regarded as an accommodation to a woman for taking on the additional, unpaid duties at home, not a perk that would engender – no pun intended – a discount to this worker's salary. Similarly, societal norms about the appropriateness of certain jobs for women – such as in tech and finance, as mentioned earlier – can and should be changed, as there is little clear inherent advantage held by those possessing the Y chromosome in performing these jobs.

Clearly, Mdm Deputy Speaker, these subtle forms of gender discrimination in the workplace – expressed in dollars and cents – remain real and present in the contemporary Singaporean economy.

COVID-19 has now presented itself as a genuine opportunity for us to seize upon and rectify this discrimination.

On one hand, the pandemic has hit women harder than men. The need to take on an even greater burden of managing the household as they work from home, has meant lower productivity, higher stress and greater burnout. Such feelings of stress experienced by those working from home even outstripped the amounts reported among frontline workers. If doing double shift as a woman was already stressful pre-pandemic, how much more difficult would this have been when parents also had to take on additional educational and childcare responsibilities during lockdown periods, such as the circuit breaker in 2020, or Phase Two (Heightened Alert) this year. Hence, many women went from a dreaded double shift, to an unbearable triple.

But the pandemic has also starkly revealed how working from home was not just plausible, but more than possible. It strikes me that firms expecting a return to business-as-usual look increasingly misguided. Much like how the Black Death permanently catalysed a dramatic realignment of wages in medieval Europe, COVID-19 will induce a comparable rethinking of employer-employee relationships. The future of work may well be irreversibly flexible.

Will the Government follow this trend, then, in institutionalising clear, flexible work arrangements, starting with the Civil Service? In addition to a four-day work week, which my Sengkang teammate Louis Chua has previously raised in this House, we can consider an alternative work schedule: add an hour to each workday, which adds up to a long weekend every fortnight. I am certain that many working mothers and fathers, for that matter, would value the opportunity to spend an additional day with their children, enjoy a long weekend, or even to attend to more mundane chores that are easiest to perform on a weekday.

Mdm Deputy Speaker, I believe all of us in this House agree that the ultimate goal is straightforward: we strive for a Singaporean workplace where one's gender has no bearing whatsoever on one's ability to succeed.

This, ultimately, requires our leadership – our top administrators in the public sector, our civil society visionaries and our captains of private industry – to fully buy into this vision of a gender-neutral workplace. But in the meantime, to get there from here, we will require policy changes, policy nudges; there remains an insufficient number of female leaders to ensure that diversity and inclusion expand organically. That is why the demonstration effect from Government is so crucial.

There are many practical steps to promote greater gender diversity in corporate leadership. Hurdles for women to participate in high-performance leadership training – such as how heavy travel commitments preclude young mothers, or underweighting certain emotional and social competencies in assessing leadership suitability – should, as much as possible, be removed. We could also consider a limited number of reservations for female representation on board memberships in GLCs, to preclude the possibility of total non-representation. This is especially so since, in contrast to electoral representation – as Aljunied Member of Parliament and my colleague, Ms Sylvia Lim, mentioned earlier – where there is palpable pressure from political competition, similar pressures are often significantly weaker in the corporate world, to the extent that the gender composition of board memberships even matter to the decisive shareholders.

The rank-and-file need support, too. Under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Japan has made enormous strides in increasing the participation of women in its traditionally male-dominated offices, by dramatically expanding childcare facilities for working mothers. In a number of non-mature housing estates, especially Sengkang, the constituency that I represent, the ratio of childcare and Primary schooling facilities to eligible-aged children still lags the national average, because even as the absolute number of such facilities has grown, the number of children has grown even faster, resulting in a relative worsening.

Similarly, we can consider paid re-entry programmes for mothers and informal caregivers, to ease their re-integration into the workforce, post-childbirth or after a period of time as the primary caregiver. Programmes can be designed to refresh and update skills, tax relief can be offered to employers that operate successful re-entry programmes, to strengthen incentives for adoption.

And when these opportunities have been offered, our women have eagerly answered the call. In 2020, more women have taken up board seats in Statutory Boards, companies and institutions of public character. Notably, however, the target of at least a fifth of board seats in the top-100 primary-listed companies was missed.

Finally, going beyond participation, we should look more seriously at ameliorating the gender pay gap. While corporate governance matters are, ultimately, incumbent on the leadership of firms themselves, the Workers' Party has emphasised in its manifesto that employers with 10 or more employees should report their gender wage gaps, for the same job, to the MOM. MOM should then go on to publish aggregated and average pay gap information for each industry sector. Remuneration disclosure guidelines for SGX-listed firms should also be revised to encourage the routine publication of the gender pay gap in their annual reports. The Government should also render support to firms – especially smaller ones – for both the routine collection of such data, as well as offer strategies for how such gaps may be reduced in practice.

The Indian Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen observed that India has as many as 100 million "missing women" – as a result, he claimed, of gender-selective abortions – which is a travesty not just on a demographic and economic perspective, but a tragedy from a moral, societal and cultural one. But let us also not be blind to the fact that there are missing women in our workplaces. There are also hundreds of thousands of missing women that is a shortcoming that we can and must collectively resolve.

As Members of this House may know, I have a young daughter. Like every parent, I want her to grow up in the best possible world, one where she is able to pursue her dreams – whatever they may be – independent of whether she happens to possess a Y chromosome or not. I hope that we can all agree that this is why all of us need to work together to realise genuine gender equality in our Singaporean workplaces.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Ms Raeesah Khan, you wish to make a clarification?

Debate resumed.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Mr Zhulkarnain Abdul Rahim.

7.27 pm

Mr Zhulkarnain Abdul Rahim (Chua Chu Kang): Mdm Deputy Speaker, I rise in support of the spirit of this Motion and the proposed amendment by hon Member from Sembawang Group Representation Constituency (GRC), Mr Vikram Nair. Given all that has been said by both sides of this House, it is clear that we are all in agreement that this Motion needs to make reference to the action plans that are required.

I think beyond an affirmation, there needs to be an acknowledgement of past contributions; beyond a declaration, there needs to be concrete steps; and beyond a statement of intent, there needs to be a call to action.

I am sure that the Members of this House, like me, are looking forward to the action plans in the upcoming White Paper arising out of the Conversations on Singapore Women's Development.

This year being the Year of Celebrating Singapore Women, it is important for us to remember how far we have come in terms of society and as a nation. Conversations on women's advancement in Singapore have been championed by the PAP Women's Wing since their inception and even before that in 1956 when the PAP Women's League was formed by Mdm Chan Choy Siong, one of the first women to be elected into Parliament in Singapore.

However, it is not to be championed by women alone. In my years of advocating to end domestic violence and championing women empowerment, I strongly believe that men are integral to any conversation regarding women development. I am thus glad that we have seen an overwhelming support from men who also share these same views.

The PAP Women's Wing and Young PAP have consulted diverse groups in our society, including men, and put together a set of recommendations that we hope the Government will consider to help our women and daughters achieve their fullest potential and aspirations. During the collation of ground feedback leading up to these set of recommendations, it is heartening to see men lending their voices and joining in our collective efforts to effect positive change.

Past and present PAP Members in this House have also stood up and spoken up for causes that are close to the hearts of women in Singapore. Mr Alex Yam spoke on the equality of value and treatment of both working mothers and stay-at-home mothers. Mr Louis Ng championed the causes of women including breastfeeding mothers, single mothers and foreign spouses. Mr Melvin Yong encouraged men to shoulder the burden that women carry at home to strengthen marriages in Singapore.

Dr Lam Pin Min sought for more flexibility for fathers to take their parental leave entitlement. Dr Ahmad Mohd Magad more than 10 years ago championed steps to empower single mothers and encourage employers to consider flexible work arrangements. There are many others from past and present Parliament in our nation's history who have done so as well. These are not just a "Few Good Men"; they represent the goodness in men and there are many more out there. They have not only championed the cause, but they have also taken actionable steps with the Government to help shape policies and laws that benefit the women and daughters of our nation.

But laws and policies are not the be-all and end-all. We have to shape mindsets and shift attitudes.

Recently, we have seen various cases involving the objectification of women and misogynistic views being spread online. We need to address this. Patriarchal and stereotype mindsets alienate and demean the potential of our daughters, wives and women in our lives. In Malay, please, Madam.

(In Malay): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] During this pandemic, we see more family conflicts that may lead to an increase in cases of domestic violence. Learning and working from home have become the norm today. Increased interactions at home and limited physical space can trigger more misunderstandings and household discord. This may be due to couples having different perceptions about caregiving and spousal roles at home. This perception may stem from patriarchal thinking or preconceptions about the role of wives, mothers or daughters in the home.

One of the proposals in the paper by the PAP Women’s Wing is about ensuring equal sharing of caregiving responsibilities between men and women. This is done by sharing of parental leave. Fathers now want to be more involved in the upbringing and the lives of their children.

The pandemic situation and working from home have made society become more aware about how we can balance caregiving commitments with our jobs. We also need employers’ cooperation to encourage men to use their parental leave and help to take care of their children at home. Allowing flexibility in sharing parental leave will help families that have their own needs when facing very distinct challenges. This is because not everyone can work from home. With a deeper involvement of fathers, this can potentially change our children’s thinking and at the same the future of our society.

All this is set against the backdrop of our increasingly family-friendly society and national landscape. This cannot be achieved without constant planning and Government policies that have always sought progress for everyone including our women and our daughters.

Here I would also like to laud the efforts of the men in the Malay/Muslim community who have worked together to strengthen our family institution and portray positive values and attitudes as fathers, for example, the Dads For Life movement, which has set up Dads@School to provide opportunities and space to empower fathers and learn best practices to carry out their responsibilities.

Another initiative is the M³ BersamaMu program, led by our Assistant Kadis. It provides strong support to couples in their married life. Recognition by society can also inspire others, such as the Exemplary Father Award, organised by the Ain Society. It highlights examples of fathers in our community who are responsible and possess positive values and attitudes. Our community figures such as Ustaz Mohamad Irwan Shah and Mr Sujimy Mohamed also often participate in online platforms and seminars to provide advice and lessons about family to our community.

These efforts demonstrate the important role that men play to portray a positive attitude in the upbringing of our children, and how women are highly regarded in our community and our faith. Let us not disparage or belittle these noble efforts. Our society, especially men, are not only key partners to women, but they are also advocates and companions who defend the rights of women in our country.

(In English): Beyond caregiving, we must also look at how to provide the best mindset and environment at home for our family members, including our children and partners to flourish and realise their fullest potential. Our children look at us and model our behaviours and learn from our thinking and words.

To me, patriarchal mindset and stereotypes are learned, not inherited. I recall watching an advertisement that sets out a social experiment. Groups of girls of varying age were placed in front of a camera and asked the same set of questions, "Show me how you run like a girl, how you throw like a girl, how you fight like a girl?" In the older age girls, they seem to show a weakened state, like running slowly, throwing gently or fighting softly, if there is such a term. But in the younger girls, there was not any difference between what they demonstrated and what the other boys demonstrated; they ran just as fast, threw just as far and fought just as hard, if not faster, further or even better. How did this phrase "like a girl" become a derogatory term?

Our children should not believe this. Our boys cannot think of themselves to be superior. Our girls should not feel inferior because of who they are. We can dispel this notion and support our children in our homes. We must take action.

As fathers, how we treat, speak and respect women in our lives would be how our daughters would expect to be treated and what is expected of our sons, as the measure of a man.

We have made great progress as a nation in terms of women's development for several decades and we shall continue to do so. We have to act and build upon the good work and past contributions of the Government, community and social activists. I am happy that the mover of this Motion and all Members who have spoken join in these collective efforts, and I welcome more to come forward to do so.

I also look forward to the action plan and consolidated views in the White Paper to be presented. I hope we can see further promotion of an environment that is both conducive to child caregiving and welcoming for caregivers. We can do this by implementing policies that signal child caregiving as a shared responsibility between parents. I am heartened to hear from Minister of State Sun Xueling about the theme on strengthening support on caregiving.

In addition to sharing of parental leave that is being recommended in the joint Paper by PAP Women's Wing, I have other suggestions as well.

Firstly, to increase the spouse tax relief to better reflect the significant and valuable contribution of a stay-at-home mom or dad. Currently, the spouse tax relief is lower than an active NSman relief, Parent relief, or the Grandparent Caregiver Relief.

Second, encourage working spouses to utilise the Retirement Sum Topping-Up Scheme to top up their non-working spouses' CPF accounts by extending tax reliefs to not only cash top-ups, but also CPF fund transfers as well. And, perhaps, to introduce a tiered basic childcare subsidy for non-working mothers, in increasing amounts in accordance with the number of children that they have, instead of a flat rate right now.

For mothers who are still looking for a job or training for one, perhaps we can have an interim childcare subsidy for a fixed period of time for them. Currently, they need to seek special approval for childcare subsidies on a case-by-case basis.

Lastly, to implement a network of temporary childcare services that can be provided by pre-approved childcare centres. In this age of flexible working arrangements and working from home, such service can provide urgent and temporary respite care so that stay-at-home moms or dads can attend to urgent work or business. I will elaborate on these suggestions and more in the full debate of the White Paper when presented.

In conclusion, Mdm Deputy Speaker, I hope that we can come up with concrete ideas and approaches, and it takes all of us in this House – men, women, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters – to stand up for women's development as a society, and speak up against misogynistic and patriarchal mindset and stereotypes in order for us to progress as a family unit, as a nation; and quoting from a social activist, Desmond Tutu: "It is by standing up for the rights of girls and women that we truly measure up as men". [Applause.]

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Miss Cheng Li Hui.

7.40 pm

Miss Cheng Li Hui (Tampines): Thank you, Mdm Deputy Speaker. I refer to Member's Ms He Ting Ru's reference to the Workers' Party 2020 manifesto on enhanced fertility support. Members in this House know that I have been speaking on egg-freezing since I came into this House. I feel that this is an important topic and, along the way, I met with some setbacks. After all, it is not something that everyone can agree with. I am glad that there has been some progress, and this is also part of the PAP Women's Wing's recommendation. I am also glad that the Workers' Party supports this position.

Over the years, I have also raised questions on IVF, PGS and requested MOH for updates on egg freezing and sperm bank.

In July 2019, the PAP Women's Wing also did a survey on journey to parenthood. We had 716 respondents. By then, I have also visited over 400 Tampines families with newborns. I had a chat with them on their journey to parenthood.

We raised the concerns and survey results to MOH. And in late August 2019, Minister Josephine Teo and Senior Minister of State Dr Amy Khor announced enhancements to the Marriage and Parenthood scheme by removing the age ceiling to Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) and also, the cap on the number of times a woman can undergo ART. They also added subsidy for couples undergoing Intrauterine Insemination (IUI) at public assistant reproduction centres. I think there is also no need for another national fertility centre, as we already have three public fertility centres in KKH, SGH and NUH. The waiting time for all three clinics has been cut considerably.

In fact, since mid-2019, couples can proceed with fertility treatments the following month, after completing their consultation and counselling. I also want to take this opportunity to thank the many families who shared their stories – some inspiring, some heartbreaking – but it helps us to understand what you are going through, so that we can speak for you and improve on it.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Parliamentary Secretary Rahayu Mahzam.

7.43 pm

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Communications and Information (Ms Rahayu Mahzam): Thank you, Mdm Deputy Speaker. It is heartening to see many Members speak very passionately about various aspects of women’s development. We are clearly united by our common desire to see issues facing women being addressed and for women to be truly empowered to realise their aspirations. This topic is not new. It is indeed encouraging to see the evolution and development of efforts to empower, support and protect women over the years, through the relentless pursuit by Members of Parliament (MPs) to build on existing policies, the advocacy and community groups who continue to champion for women and the Government that is willing to listen, consider views and make changes where appropriate.

I have had the opportunity to walk this journey with PPIS before I became MP, working on several papers with the PAP Women’s Wing, participating in debates as a backbencher and now, working together with Minister of State Sun Xueling and Minister of State Low Yen Ling on the Conversations on Women’s Development.

I would like to take this opportunity to highlight a few examples in the wide-ranging efforts that reflect the evolving developments in this ongoing endeavour. I would refer to three themes: to empower, support and protect women.

We begin with the efforts to empower women to thrive at work and have equal opportunities as men. In Parliament, Ms Tin Pei Ling had asked about the gender wage gap and often called for digital fluency among women as this could open up new career opportunities for them in the digital age. Ms Tin, and yourself, Mdm Deputy Speaker, and Miss Cheryl Chan had raised concerns about the representation of women in the STEM sectors.

Mdm Deputy Speaker and former MP Dr Intan Azura have long called for women to be viewed as valuable resources and for employers to leverage on this talent pool.

The Government supports the diverse career aspirations of women. We encourage women to enter occupations of their choice, including in industries that are traditionally male-dominated.

Women now make up 41% of the technology workforce in Singapore. This is well above the global average of 28%. But there are still plenty of opportunities available in the technology sector, and we want more women to benefit from them and take on leadership roles. By entering such growth sectors, women can achieve better career and pay prospects to further close the wage gap.

One meaningful development in creating opportunities for women in the digital sector is the SG Women in Tech initiative, which IMDA launched in 2019 with community and industry partners.

The initiative enhances support for women in the technology sector and attracts more of them to the sector. Through mentorship, leadership development, sponsorship and networking opportunities, the initiative has reached out to more than 117,000 people.

Other MPs like Miss Cheryl Chan, Mr Darryl David and Er Dr Lee Bee Wah have made suggestions over the past years on introducing customised packages to help women update their skills and facilitate their return to the workforce after marriage or childbirth. More recently, Ms Poh Li San and Ms Yeo Wan Ling have spoken about challenges women face in caring for their families and pursuing their careers.

The Government, working in collaboration with different agencies, has responded to such calls over the years. We have continued to develop and enhance programmes to support career mobility and help ease the transition for women back into the workforce.

Workforce Singapore (WSG)'s employment facilitation programmes and services provide support to women looking to return to the workforce after a period of absence. They can tap on personalised career coaching and various programmes to facilitate their re-entry. In the last three years, WSG has collectively placed more than 48,000 women across their programmes and services. Mdm Deputy Speaker, in Malay, please.

(In Malay): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] Many programmes have been created at the national level to support and help women to continue working and achieve their aspirations. This is also important for our community. Although some still hold stereotypes that a woman’s place is in the kitchen or at home, there are many others who want women to be given opportunities and choices. Society and businesses have much to gain from the valuable contributions of Malay women. Many young Malay women also want a different future, full of opportunities to succeed. Furthermore, having two incomes in each Malay family strengthens their financial stability.

Beyond initiatives to encourage reskilling and employment at the national level, M³ agencies also have programmes that are customised to the needs of Malay women. One example is the Back-to-Work Women programme by MENDAKI SENSE. It prepares women to return to the workforce and connects them to employers who are hiring workers.

I hope Malay women will always be supported in chasing their dreams. This is indeed a continuing effort.

I heard the issues raised by Ms Raeesah Khan earlier. She mentioned the issue of female genital cutting, tudung and polygamy. Her points are similar to the recommendations seen in the Lepak Conversations report which we have also received. I have actually spoken to these activists before and I am indeed proud of these young people who want to stand up for something that they believe is important. But they also understand the complexities of these issues within our community.

The issue of female genital cutting, for instance. The Government does not support practices that cause harm to young women or girls. MUIS also holds the same view and has explained that Islam does not support any procedure that harms individuals. But the fact is, there are different opinions in our community. So, we should resolve this matter, not by prescribing rules, but by understanding and talking or discussing with the community.

The issue of polygamy was also discussed. This is something that ROMM has already noted and there are actually very strict regulations in place. This resulted in the total percentage of polygamous marriages falling from 0.4% in 2010 to 0.07%. So, this shows that ROMM’s efforts have been effective.

There is also the tudung issue. The tudung issue is not new. It was not only raised by Mr Faisal Manap, but by PAP Members of Parliament as well. Mr Zaqy has raised this issue. Dr Intan, Mr Zainal, our President herself raised this issue when she was in Parliament. I have also raised this issue before. The Government recognises and understands the desire of Muslim nurses to wear the tudung at work. This is something that has been discussed and will be given due attention. It is not an easy matter. We should hold discussions with all levels of society, not just with the Muslim community, and this will take time. The Prime Minister has already said that he will make an announcement on this matter at the upcoming National Day Rally.

So, the issues raised are certainly issues that may have been brought up. But in order to resolve these issues properly, I think we need to fully understand and know our community to find the solutions. And we should encourage everyone to be edified and bring them towards a paradigm shift in a judicious manner.

(In English): For women to pursue their aspirations unencumbered, women need to be supported with their caregiving responsibilities. Men can be caregivers too and the Government also supports them in this area. Yet, women are still the primary caregivers in most instances.

There are many reasons for this, including gender bias, stereotypes and pervasive socio-cultural expectations. Many women dedicate their lives to caring for their families and may thus feel compelled to give up formal employment.

To address this, the Government encourages men to share the caregiving load.

We have enhanced parental leave schemes and introduced flexibility for fathers to share a portion of their wives' maternity leave. We also work with community partners such as Families for Life and the Centre for Fathering, which drives the Dads for Life movement, to promote active fatherhood.

Many men are stepping up proactively and we applaud their contributions towards building more supportive and resilient families.

Over the past years, Members have actively flagged the difficulties which some women caregivers experience and called for stronger support for them.

In 2020, Ms Carrie Tan urged the Government to consider valuing the unpaid care work of women and legislating workplace policies to support working caregivers. Since 2017, Mr Louis Ng has been a strong advocate for greater support for single parents, amongst the many things he champions.

Responding to the diverse challenges faced by women caregivers, the Government has made significant efforts to relieve the load they experience.

For childcare, the Government has expanded preschool places and ensured its affordability. Regardless of their working status, all parents of Singapore Citizen children also receive basic subsidies for childcare and infant care services.

For eldercare, the Government has been growing the capacity of community care services and making them more accessible to better meet the needs of our seniors and their caregivers. In 2019, MOH also launched the Caregiver Support Action Plan to strengthen support for senior caregiving in the community. Its measures cover aspects like care navigation, respite care, financial support, workplace support and caregiver empowerment and training.

To support retirement adequacy of those who had low incomes during their working years and now have less in retirement, the Government introduced the Silver Support Scheme. About two-thirds of Silver Support recipients are women, many of whom were probably caregivers. This is one of the many schemes which help to safeguard the continued financial stability and well-being of women as they age.

We will continue to grow such efforts to support women caregivers, no matter the circumstances they face.

As part of this process, we constantly review feedback from Members and the public to propose further action to support women in their caregiving responsibilities.

The issue that had initially sparked off the national discussion on women's development was the concern about violence against women. At that juncture, in July 2020, the PAP Women's Wing immediately came up with a statement strongly denouncing violence against women and shared concerns about the sentencing in that case with the Minister for Home Affairs. Following that, the Review of the Sentencing Framework for Sexual and Hurt Offences was conducted and, consequently, there were inter alia increase in the penalties for specific sexual offences.

We continue to face new and emerging challenges that disproportionately affect women. One such emerging issue is online harms. Technology has caused the proliferation of sexual violence in cyberspace. Many women must deal with unwanted sexual messages and calls, non-consensual sharing of intimate images, voyeurism, sexual harassment and objectification.

This has gotten worse with COVID-19 as people spend more time online. Such behaviour negatively impacts the physical and mental well-being of victims and is unacceptable.

As with many past issues affecting women, the complex task of tackling online harms also requires solutions that extend beyond new legislation from the Government.

During MCI's 2021 COS Debate, Senior Minister of State Sim Ann shared how the Government was collaborating with community partners interested to shape a safe cyberspace for women and girls. We have since followed up with real action.

As Minister of State Sun Xueling earlier mentioned, MCI has formed a Singapore Together Alliance for Action (AfA) to Tackle Online Harms, especially those targeted at women and girls. Dr Shahira Abdullah also made reference to this.

We are fortunate to tap on the expertise of 48 members who come from across the people, public and private sectors, exemplifying the importance of a partnership approach. For instance, under this AfA, MCI is collaborating with DBS and the Singapore judiciary on a community hackathon to generate solutions for safer and kinder online spaces.

As one of its co-chairs, I see the AfA as an important way to rally Singaporeans and spark more initiatives to foster a better digital culture. We must ensure that women and girls enjoy the same freedom and confidence online that they experience in real life.

The Government's work on online harms is an example of how we are working with partners to defend the progress achieved by women amidst nascent threats.

Singapore has consistently ranked well in the United Nation (UN)'s Gender Inequality and Gender Development Indices. Our women have continued to break barriers and achieve new heights across various social indicators, including in literacy, employment rates and leadership in many professional domains.

Our engagements have created space for all stakeholders to share their concerns frankly. Amidst this careful and sensitive approach, Singaporean women have achieved significant progress. However, we are not stopping there. The Government will continue to reach out to women, represent their voices and champion their progress.

Many of the points which Members raised today echo the Government's ongoing efforts to uplift Singaporean women. In particular, we can all look forward to the White Paper which will set out the Government's action plan. I believe there will be a robust debate on the specific plans to move things forward.

I am, therefore, supportive of the amendment proposed by Mr Vikram Nair as that reflects the spirit of having concrete action to support our efforts.

In conclusion, I wish to take the opportunity to thank all those who have worked with us to champion and advocate for women. We continue in this endeavour for we are not just speaking up for women, we are speaking up for the future generation. We are speaking today not because women are weak. We are speaking because men and women are strong and can change the tide of time, challenge unfairness and take action that can meaningfully change lives of future generations.

Mdm Deputy Speaker, I stand in support of the amended Motion. [Applause.]

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Ms He Ting Ru.

7.58 pm

Ms He Ting Ru: Mdm Deputy Speaker, we have come to the end of the debate today on a topic that touches on so many aspects of our lives individually and us as a society. The amount of feeling and the long number of speakers are indicative of how important this topic is.

As to the amendment that was proposed, the Workers' Party does not object to the amendment and looks forward to scrutinising the action plans to be proposed. We hope to see concrete steps taken to effect change, whether through legislative amendments or policy overhaul.

Be that as it may, I would again reiterate that when we decided to bring this Private Members' Motion as a party, my colleagues and I felt strongly about how the issues we raised affect both ourselves and also, the women and men in our lives.

Mr Leon Perera spoke about the three women in his life – his mother, his wife and his daughter – and how he wants to see a world where women were no longer boxed into long-held stereotypes. He shared how men and employers have key roles to play in abolishing sexist attitudes, and how we can accelerate progress by having anti-discrimination legislation while working together to teach the principles of gender equality to our children.

I thank Minister of State Sun Xueling and Parliamentary Secretary Rahayu Mahzam for giving an update on Government policies supporting women in various areas.

My Sengkang GRC colleague Mr Louis Chua shared why it is important that our care-related policies do not ironically perpetuate stereotypes and reinforce notions on gender roles. Both men and women must not be forced to make the false choice of choosing between work or family, and we need to ensure adequate support is granted to our caregivers. He also mentioned the important role of fathers in caring for their children – all the while leading by example as told by the number of times his little two-year-old featured in our Zoom calls while he was on papa duty.

Mr Vikram Nair recounted what participants had shared at a dialogue session he attended, including their experiences of facing discrimination at the workplace during pregnancy or difficulties in re-entering the workforce after devoting several years to caregiving.

Ms Raeesah Khan spoke about sexual violence and survivor care. She noted that we need to ensure that survivors are given adequate support to ensure that they are able to address the trauma they faced. She also touched on three pressing issues in her community: female genital cutting, polygamy and the hijab.

Dr Shahira Abdullah called for a whole-of-society and community mindset shift, including for boys and their caregivers. She said that women should be the allies of each other and act in solidarity with women from marginalised groups.

I thank Ms Yeo Wan Ling for her speech on the contributions of women in the Labour Movement and Ms Tin Pei Ling for reminding us of the Aspirations of Women Motion in 2017 and for supporting the amended Motion. Mr Zhulkarnian Abdul Rahim mentioned the important role of men and fathers in this conversation; and Miss Cheng Li Hui, I thank her for her views as well on egg freezing and fertility support.

Mr Gerald Giam in his speech called for more openness in our immigration and visa policies for foreign spouses of Singapore Citizens to strengthen the Singapore Core, for more support to be extended to single parents and for policies to promote flexible work arrangements, all of which benefit both men and women.

Ms Sylvia Lim focused on the challenge facing political parties in Singapore in finding sufficient numbers of able and willing women to step up to being parliamentary candidates and political leaders. She noted that while Singapore had made progress, greater success was more likely if the social norms supported gender-equal choices. She was cautiously optimistic that the element of political competition would pressure political parties to field more able women, in order to gain support from a more demanding electorate.

Assoc Prof Jamus Lim shared how gender equality and female empowerment can be a force for economic progress. He has raised how our female labour force participation rate has actually trended down over the past five years and the male participation rate has consistently outstripped that of women. Moreover, the most lucrative and fastest growing sectors remain male-dominated and reduced participation could be symptomatic of the difficulty that women face in breaking into such jobs. To make matters worse, the gender pay gap in Singapore remains substantial. He also proposed various measures to support women and working mothers, and to address the gender pay gap.

These are just the main topics relating to the barriers to gender equality and there are many more which I have received in the form of comments and emails. These topics range from the concerns raised about fertility challenges that women face and women’s health in the form of the chronic management of common conditions like polycystic ovary syndrome and its associated co-morbidities.

To summarise, it is good to hear that across the aisle, we are in general agreement that gender equality has to be pushed to the forefront of national discourse.

And since it is still Olympic season, it cannot escape our attention that changes are also sweeping through sports as well. It is notable that the Tokyo 2020 Olympics saw attention being given to the outfits of female Olympians, and many commented positively on the choice of the German gymnastics women’s team and Norwegian beach volleyball women’s team to wear attire that they felt most comfortable with. It is also heartening to note that female top athletes such as Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles are the ones who are leading the way in raising issues relating to mental health.

While it is important to make our policy positions and stand clear, we must take tangible action to effect change. This is why we have brought up the various different proposals that we have in our 2020 manifesto and to make a difference, not only for women, but society as a whole. We have to enact real change in our legislation and Government policies to address discrimination directly. This is clearly not a silver bullet, but an important next step to send a signal, to set the tone for the foundational principle of gender equality that we should put at the forefront of all our policies and laws. Mdm Deputy Speaker, if I may, in Chinese.

(In Mandarin): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to reiterate that giving equal treatment to men and women should be a fundamental safeguard of a society. Of course, there are many facets to gender equality. These include adjusting policies to break down stereotypes which are unfair to women, and allow women to gain more leadership positions, such as in Parliament, the Cabinet and Boards of Directors; introducing measures to encourage employers to adopt flexible work arrangements, to narrow the pay gap between men and women, respect and understand employees’ needs to take care of their family and children; expanding sex education so that people are more sensitive in identifying and preventing sexual harassment and abuse, and giving more protection to children and the less privileged who are vulnerable to sexual harassment and abuse.

The Government should also provide more channels to report sexual harassment and abuse. In terms of legislation, the Government can introduce anti-discrimination laws, raise citizens' awareness of gender equality in the workplace and other areas, and strive towards gender equality and fair treatment. Gender equality and anti-discrimination is not only a women issue, but also a national issue that concerns all of us. As a responsible citizen, we must fulfil our duties towards each other.

(In English): I started this debate by speaking about my maternal grandmother. She would be so happy to see how little girls today do not have to fight for a right to get themselves educated in Singapore, and no longer need to hide books to read surreptitiously. But she would be first to say that we must not rest on our laurels and carry on working towards a world of gender equality.

And now, I would also like to close with a big note of thanks to my father. He was born just after the war, the last of 10 children in an extremely traditional family who viewed boys as far superior to girls. After my sister and I were born, my mother told me that she felt a lot of pressure to try for a third child, in the hope that they would have a boy. When she brought this up with my father, his answer was short and sharp, "What's wrong with my daughters?" he asked.

I am incredibly grateful that my father has lived his whole life by these words, believing and supporting his daughters with his heart and soul to live our lives in accordance with our own choices – whether or not he agreed with us! – and I know that I would not be here without this commitment that he has given us. I also do not think that he, as a lifelong workaholic at the workplace, would have expected himself to become so involved in the care and nurturing of his beloved grandsons in his 70s, which has been critical in supporting me in my own journey here today. I can only hope that many more of us show our wives, mothers and daughters the same belief and love that I experienced as we move towards greater gender equality.

Mdm Deputy Speaker, gender equality is not a partisan issue. It is not even just a women’s issue. It is a men’s issue. It is a societal issue. We are in this together. I hope our Parliamentary colleagues will address these issues together, especially since our hon colleagues have, by their own admission, said they raised similar issues repeatedly. It is time for Singapore to take the next step. [Applause.]

8.11 pm

Mdm Deputy Speaker: We have now come to the conclusion of the debate and I shall put the question to the House for decision. We have an amendment proposed by Mr Vikram Nair. We will deal with the amendment first. The amendment is that the words proposed by Mr Vikram Nair be added in line 3 after the word "society".

Question, "That the words proposed to be added, be there added" put, and agreed to.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: The amendment has been agreed to. The original Motion, as amended, is now before the House.

Original Motion, as amended, put and agreed to.

Resolved, "That this House affirms that gender equality requires a whole of society effort to remove all barriers in order to empower every woman to freely realise her full potential and participation in society and looks forward to action plans in the upcoming Government White Paper arising out of the Conversations on Singapore Women's Development."