General Assembly WOM/1875 - Ministry of Social and Family ...

Another sharia provision that prevented the full withdrawal of reservations was a rulethat women who wished to get married must have a legal guardian, or a “wali”. However, itwas ensured that the right of a woman to be heard was integrated into that wali requirementunder Singapore’s national laws.On divorce, several grounds existed for women to seek recourse, he said.Those included infidelity, failure of a husband to provide for physical and emotionalneeds and abuse or violence. After a divorce, a time period must elapse before a newmarriage was permitted, he added. He then shared specific recent developments in theareas of inheritance law, namely that many of those laws were now in harmony withprovisions of civil law, including in the area of property division, as well as with theConvention. Since the last review, Singapore had raised the minimum age of marriagefrom 16 to 18 for both genders. However, written law still allowed for the marriage of agirl between the ages of 16 and 18 under exceptional circumstances. Marriages in thatage group had nonetheless dropped by 80 per cent in recent years.The head of the delegation then addressed the issue of other human rights treaties.Singapore’s Government took ratification very seriously and had fully considered itspotential obligations under those treaties. However, she stressed, “we don’t want ratificationfor the sake of ratification”. Simply because Singapore had not ratified those treaties did notmean that those principles were not applied — in fact, they were, but it did not agree withcertain provisions.On the lack of a national human rights commission, she said the end goal was toachieve gender equality. Singapore felt that aim could be achieved through its existingmechanisms. The inter-ministerial committee was an important element of that machinery,and, in fact, went beyond the scope of the Convention to encompass other critical humanrights elements. It was also supported by the Office of Women’s Development, which wasable to address new and emerging issues in a more targeted way.On budgets for women’s issues, it was difficult to state a figure as the ministries allworked collectively. Through all those offices, she said, a strong budget was available.Singapore believed that the “different” approach brought together more areas of expertise,she added.More than half of those working in the civil service were women, anothermember of the delegation said. All of those employees underwent a series ofobligatory training on the protection of the rights of different stakeholder groups,including women, which naturally imposed a gender perspective. There was also,increasingly, a requirement to engage in consultation with the affected stakeholdersbefore a new legislation was enacted. All law-enforcement professionals were strictlytrained on handling gender issues, and abided by strict guidelines.