Concerns of sexual assault victims should not be minimised: Shanmugam

Views expressed by Law Society V-P may misrepresent norms in S'pore, says minister

- Andrew Wong

The vice-president of the Law Society of Singapore has come in for strong criticism over comments he made about a rape survivor, with Law Minister K. Shanmugam saying the views may misrepresent the norms in Singapore.

Mr Shanmugam said he was surprised to read Mr Chia Boon Teck's comments, which Mr Chia had posted on his LinkedIn page on March 22 about a High Court case involving Lev Panfilov, who had been convicted of raping a woman he met on dating app Tinder.

Among other things, Mr Chia said in the post, which has since been deleted, that "Tinder ain't no LinkedIn", in reference to how the victim and perpetrator first met.

In the same post, he described the victim, who is 30 years old, as "not exactly a babe in the woods" and commented, "Wow. Was she awake during this marathon?", in reference to the sexual assault she was subjected to.

Mr Shanmugam, who is also Home Affairs Minister, said in a Facebook post on March 24 that based on the comments, Mr Chia was suggesting that the female victim should not be believed.

"Philosophically, I take a quite different view from those expressed by Mr Chia.

"And that has been expressed in changes that we have directed, both to the laws we have in Singapore, and the way police conduct their investigations," said Mr Shanmugam, who listed out the changes that Singapore has made to better protect victims of sexual assault and harassment.

They include the 2012 repeal of a provision in the Evidence Act that allowed defence lawyers to question an alleged victim of rape, to try and show that she was of generally immoral character.

Mr Shanmugam also referred to the abolishment in 2020 of the marital immunity for rape in the Penal Code, and the increase in penalties for sexual offences, including outrage of modesty.