According to Singapore’s Penal Code, a convicted rapist can be jailed up to 20 years and fined or caned but rapists over age 50 are exempted from the cane according to the code.
“It’s timely that we review this law“
In a Facebook post on Monday, President Halimah Yacob expressed her views on recent spate of rapes involving children in their own homes by relatives, called it disturbing and sickening.
It’s ironic that they could escape from the pain caused by caning despite the lifetime of severe trauma and irreparable damage that they cruelly inflicted on their victims which will last a lifetime.
“It’s timely that we review this law,” Madam Halimah added.
Madam President Wrote,
I find the recent spate of cases involving rapes of children in their own homes by their male relatives highly disturbing and sickening.
“We need to better protect our children from such sexual predators. Severe punishments for convicted offenders are important but not sufficient by itself. We need to look at other ways to help our children and stop them from falling prey to such rapists. I worry that there could be many more unreported cases”.
“I can’t even begin to imagine how much pain and damage these young victims had to suffer”.
The reported cases follow a certain pattern.
The victims had been groomed by the sex predators who were either their fathers, stepfathers or other male relatives from a very young age so that they thought that the sickening acts committed against them, for years in some cases, were normal.
Quite a number of the victims only discovered that such acts were wrong when they attended sex education classes much later in school. The sex predators had preyed on their innocence to persuade the victims that the perversion was alright.
Some victims were reluctant to complain about the rapes for fear of breaking up the family or losing the main breadwinner. Others were threatened and intimidated into silence.
Imagine the terror and vulnerability of a child stuck in a home that’s supposed to be a sanctuary but became a living hell instead.
We have organisations that deal with domestic violence such as PAVE which are doing good work.
I hope that together with the relevant government agencies they could look at ways to better protect our children from sexual abuses in the home.
Also, rapists should not be spared the cane just because they are fifty years old. It’s ironic that they could escape from the pain caused by caning despite the lifetime of severe trauma and irreparable damage that they cruelly inflicted on their victims which will last a lifetime. In some cases, the rapes were committed earlier but reported only after the perpetrator reached fifty years old. It’s timely that we review this law.
It’s our duty to protect our young and we must not fail them.
Image from President Halimah Yacob/Facebook
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