Understanding your rights as a women (in singapore)

1. Women's Charter

An Act to provide for monogamous marriages and for the solemnization and registration of such marriages; to amend and consolidate the law relating to divorce, the rights and duties of married persons, the protection of family, the maintenance of wives and children and the punishment of offences against women and girls; and to provide for matters incidental thereto.

[15th September 1961, Revised 1997]

Dr. Kawanjit Soin (NMP, Ex-Aware President and founder member, and TKGS alumni) pushed for amendments in Women's Charter in 1997)

Relevant links: http://www.ilo.org/public/english/employment/gems/eeo/law/singapore/wc97.htm
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2005/51529.htm
Singapore Statues:
http://statutes.agc.gov.sg/non_version/cgi-bin/cgi_retrieve.pl?actno=REVED-353&doctitle=WOMEN%92S%20CHARTER%0A&date=latest&method=part


A Summary:
The Women's Charter is an Act which provides the legal basis for equal rights and responsibilities between husbands and wives in the management of children and the home.

Section 46 states the duties and rights of a husband and wife in the management of the home and children as follows:

a. They are mutually bound to co-operate with each other in safeguarding the interests of the union and in caring and providing for the children.
b. They have equal rights in the running of the matrimonial household.
c. They have the right separately to engage in any trade or profession or in social activities.
d. The wife has the right to use her own surname and name separately.

Section 51 ensures the legal capacity of married women in respect of ownership and as a contractual party:

a. in acquiring, holding and disposing of, any property;
b. in being liable in respect of any tort, contract, debt or obligation;
c. in suing and being sued in her own name either in tort or in contract or otherwise and in being entitled to all remedies and redress for all purposes; and,
d. in being subject to the law relating to bankruptcy and to the enforcement of judgements and orders.

Section 52 guarantees that a married woman can own property and dispose of it or hold it for her separate use in equity. Property belonging to her at the time of her marriage as well as property acquired separately during the marriage also belongs to her.

Section 54 stipulates that the money and property derived from any housekeeping allowance of a matrimonial home shall, in the absence of any agreement between the spouses to the contrary, be treated as belonging to the husband and the wife in equal shares.

Section 69 makes it obligatory for a husband to maintain his wife and children during marriage. Any married woman whose husband neglects or refuses to provide for her reasonable maintenance may apply to a District Court or a Magistrate’s Court and that Court may order the husband to pay a monthly allowance or a lump sum for her maintenance.

Section 112 to 116 provides a divorced woman with rights to an equitable share of the matrimonial assets as well as to maintenance from her former husband for herself and their children under her custody.

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2. Extracted from CEDEW (Convention On the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women) report 2007

This report was submitted by AWARE to UN and MCYS.
Full downloadable report here>>

Archaic notions of marital obligations

16.123 The marital rape exemption is at worst an archaic vestige of bygone times when women were deemed mere chattels, as part of her husband’s property (with the resulting implication that the forced sexual intercourse was really little more than a man making use of his own property)71, and at best, a feeble attempt by the law to uphold and promote consortium in a marriage.

16.124 Unfortunately, the marital rape exemption is not tenable in the 21st Century when women have, through education and the mass media, become more aware of their rights and liberties. A woman’s dignity and integrity is not to be circumvented, nor in the least compromised, by the marital rape exemption.

16.125 Society has also come to terms with the notion that a marriage is a partnership between the husband and the wife. Section 46 of the Women’s Charter states:
“Upon the solemnization of marriage, the husband and the wife shall be mutually bound to co-operate with each other in safeguarding the interests of the union and in caring and providing for the children.
The husband and the wife shall have the right separately to engage in any trade or profession or in social activities.
The wife shall have the right to use her own surname and name separately.
The husband and the wife shall have equal rights in the running of the matrimonial household. ”
16.126 There is no reason why the husband should be given free rein to assert his “right” for marital intercourse and the wife has no corresponding liberty to decline.