Reported Cases of Child and Elder Abuse in Last Five Years

36 Dr Intan Azura Mokhtar asked the Minister for Social and Family Development in the last five years (a) how many cases of child abuse and elder abuse respectively have been reported annually; (b) what are the common types of abuse inflicted on these children and elderly victims; and (c) what are the common types of familial relationship the perpetrators have with the victims.

The Senior Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Social and Family Development (Assoc Prof Dr Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim) (for the Minister for Social and Family Development): Mr Speaker, in the last five years, MSF's Child Protective Service has investigated an average of about 600 child abuse cases annually. Since the Adult Protective Service was set up in 2015, MSF has investigated an average of 78 cases annually involving elders above the age of 65.

The majority of both our child and elder abuse cases involve physical abuse or neglect. Close to 90% of perpetrators in child abuse cases investigated by MSF are family members involving a parent or step-parent. For elder abuse, 80% of perpetrators are the victims' family members including children and spouses.

MSF will continue to work closely with families and community partners to keep individuals safe. The Vulnerable Adults Act, which came into effect on 19 December 2018, provides an additional lever to protect vulnerable adults when families and community partners are unable to do so.

Mr Speaker: Dr Intan.

Dr Intan Azura Mokhtar (Ang Mo Kio): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank the Senior Parliamentary Secretary for the answer and for the data shared. The numbers are quite big. One child or one elderly victim is one too many. At this point in time, what is the extent of the effects of such abuse on, especially the young children or even the elderly victims that are held by MSF and their partners? And have the victims been able to recover from the abuse and have they managed to resume normalcy in their lives after intervention by MSF and its partners?

And my second question is: how effectively have our public campaigns been in raising awareness about familial abuse, whether to children, the elderly or even to spouses, particularly in helping the general public raise the alarm on any forms of familial abuse they know of in any family that they are aware of?

Assoc Prof Dr Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim: Sir, I thank the Member for the supplementary questions. We all feel for the victims and I think, in such cases, the effects are not only on the victims. The effects also go on to carers and the perpetrators themselves. So, we look at it from a very serious perspective of how we can help the recovery stage and at the same time, we want to focus on prevention. So, family, community, they are the frontline, where we can help to prevent it from happening.

So far, those who have come forward, that we have been in touch with, we have seen that the recovery process has been quite good although not easy; and for some, quite slow. So, we have not only been looking at how we can engage the victims. We also engage the perpetrators and the carers to see how when the situation is better, really how the family can move forward along those lines.

And I am very thankful to fellow Singaporeans for responding well to our campaigns, to our calls to break the silence. Because at the end of the day, it is not only about the family alone, I think we have to play a part. And many Singaporeans have come forward, including the family members. For example, I received a message from one Singaporean who shared that one of her children has this issue and it is not only about that child. It is about the issue of inter-generational family violence that had been experienced by the great-grandfather, to the grandfather and down the line until today. So, I am very happy that because of this awareness campaign, we realise that more of them are thinking, coming forward and we have been able to help many Singaporeans.

Our awareness campaigns, for example, MSF's "Break The Silence" videos have been quite successful. We have more than 14.2 million views. As such, you see more and more people being aware, looking out for one another. And also, we have been training our stakeholders, our educators, healthcare professionals, counsellors, as well as social workers, to sharpen their tools and how they can respond and engage those who are affected by it. We also go beyond online platforms. We engage with community whereby we go down to the heartlands to engage heartlanders, residential homes, tertiary institutions and schools, to see how we can better engage them, equip them with the necessary tools to see how they can play a part.

Last year, in 2018, we have reached out to about 35,000 persons in the heartlands to equip themselves to able to address the issues. So, we will continue to do more and we feel that it is each and everyone's responsibility to play a part so that we can take care of our children and also ensure that our elderly can grow and have graceful senior years in Singapore.

Mr Muhamad Faisal Bin Abdul Manap (Aljunied): I thank the Senior Parliamentary Secretary for the reply. I just like to know whether, for the past three years, is the trend upwards or downwards, in terms of number of cases being reported? Has it been increasing for the past years or reducing?

Assoc Prof Dr Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim: Sir, I thank the Member for the question. Because of our effort to increase the awareness and also sharpen the tools with regards to those who are involved in this area, people are able to identify cases easily and bring forward anything they find not right with regards to how the victims are responding. So, we can see an increasing trend. Nevertheless, we want to make sure that, as a whole, while we increase the awareness, we also make sure that families are able to provide a better environment for their children and the elders.