SINGAPORE – Victims of sexual crimes will be given priority and greater privacy when they file reports at all 34 neighbourhood police centres from April 2023.

They will be able to indicate at the queue management kiosks that they are reporting a sexual crime and will be given a private space during the interviews.

Outlining the details of the initiative at the Sexual Crime Awareness Seminar at the Police Cantonment Complex on Friday, Minister for Law and Home Affairs K. Shanmugam said the police will progressively roll out the “Sexual Crime Report” option in the kiosks, which will immediately alert the officers at the centre. The victims will then be given priority and some privacy.

“This year, we will increase our efforts to support victims of sexual crimes and that hopefully will lower the barriers to report sexual crimes,” he added.

This is among the new initiatives and enhancements to existing efforts announced by the police on Friday.

They come after a five-year high of 2,549 sexual assault cases were reported in 2022, including rape, sexual assault by penetration, outrage of modesty and sexual crime involving children and vulnerable victims. There were 2,459 cases in 2021 and 2,212 in 2020. Last year’s figure also exceeded those in pre-pandemic years, with 2,409 cases reported in 2019 and 2,414 in 2018.

On April 3, the police formed the Sexual Crime and Family Violence Command (SFC) under the Criminal Investigation Department, which has officers who are trained to deal with such cases.

Head operations and policy branch of the command, Deputy Superintendent of Police Sabrina Wong, said the SFC was formed to enhance investigations and the management of cases at a systemic level, including victim care.

“This also allows for greater synergy in stakeholder management and policymaking, as well as better coordination of upstream measures to tackle such crimes,” she added.

She was speaking to the media in the refurbished One-Stop Abuse Forensic Examination Centre (OneSAFE Centre) at the Police Cantonment Complex which will open later in April.

The centre allows sexual crime victims to undergo forensic and medical examinations in a private facility, instead of being taken to a public hospital. Its upgrade includes two new medical rooms to increase its capacity for forensic medical examination.

Aside from the medical rooms, the centre has two private holding rooms with a bed, interview space and a play room for children.

Director of the clinical and forensic psychology service at the Ministry of Social and Family Development Tan Li Jen, who has over 20 years of experience in victim care, noted that there have been many improvements in the way the police manage sexual assault cases, including providing safe spaces for victims to feel supported.

“But of course, there’s still a long way to go. There are a lot more ways that we can all still learn and improve, in order to create that very supportive culture where victims can truly feel that they will not be judged, they will not be blamed for having a sexual assault experience,” she added.

The police are also working to expand the eligibility criteria for multi-disciplinary interviews for more young victims. These interviews combine police, child protection officer and doctor interviews into one led by the police so that the child does not have to recount the incidents to different parties, which can add to their trauma.

Currently, the interviews are conducted at KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital and involve interviews and forensic medical examinations.

Mr Shanmugam said on Friday that there will always be room for improvement in the way the police manage sexual crime cases.

“We will never get this completely right, because any organisation that has a large number of people dealing with a large number of different types of cases, with human agency, even with the best will in the world, there will be errors, if not something else,” he noted.

“And we will just have to continuously learn, internalise and improve.”

Changes to laws to protect victims of sexual crimes

2019

Changes to the Penal Code and Evidence Act

Updated offences such as the production, distribution, possession of and access to voyeuristic recordings, as well as threats to distribute, or the distribution of, intimate images or recordings.

Added new offences which include sexual communication with a minor below 16; engaging in sexual activity before a minor below 16; causing a minor below 16 to look at a sexual image; and exploitative sexual penetration of a minor of or above 16 but under 18.

Enhanced penalties of up to twice the maximum punishment for some offences against vulnerable victims including those with mental or physical disabilities, children under 14 as well as domestic workers. Penalties are enhanced for victims in an intimate or close relationship with the offender.

Added new offences to punish acts involving sustained abuse of a vulnerable victim, such as causing death to a vulnerable victim by sustained abuse; causing or allowing death of a vulnerable victim in the same household and allowing neglect, physical or sexual abuse of a domestic worker.

Amendments to the Protection from Harassment Act

Doubled the maximum penalties for offences against vulnerable persons and intimate partners, as well as repeated breaches of protection orders and expedited protection orders.

Increased penalties for offences committed against persons in a close or intimate relationship with the offender.

2021

Increased penalties for three sexual offences, including outrage of modesty.

Raised the maximum jail term for outrage of modesty from two to three years, so that harsher punishments can be imposed for egregious cases.

The maximum sentence for offences involving sexual communication with minors is also raised from a year to two years’ jail. The first offence is for sexual activity in the presence of a minor or showing a sexual image to a minor between ages 14 and 16, and the second is for offences relating to minors between ages 16 and 18.

A deterrent stance will be taken against adult offenders – those above the age of 21 – who commit certain hurt and sexual offences.

Attorney-General’s Chambers will generally object to rehabilitative sentences such as probation and community-based sentences for such offenders.

2023

Introduced Online Criminal Harms Act to deal more effectively with online activities that would be criminal if they had happened in the physical realm in Singapore.

Amended the Broadcasting Act to make social media platforms liable if they fail to protect local users from online harms.

Infocomm Media Development Authority can issue orders to social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok, to take down egregious content.

This includes posts advocating suicide, self-harm, child sexual exploitation and terrorism, as well as materials that may incite racial or religious tensions or pose a risk to public health.

Failure to comply may attract a fine of up to $1 million, or a direction to have their social media services blocked here.

Internet service providers such as Singtel, StarHub and M1 may also face fines of up to $500,000 for failing to block the services in question.

Code of Practice for Online Safety, to be imposed on regulated social media platforms, spells out the safeguards needed to prevent users, especially children under 18, from accessing harmful content. These include tools that allow children or their parents to manage their safety on these services, and mechanisms for users to report harmful content and unwanted interactions.

• Additional reporting by Chen Xinyi