Lack of safety for women online must be addressed: Sim Ann
Public engagement session comes after offensive online poll ranking female Islamic religious teachers
Girls and women here enjoy a relatively high degree of safety, but this may not be the case when they are online, said Senior Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and National Development Sim Ann on Saturday.
Ms Sim and Parliamentary Secretary for Communications and Information and Health Rahayu Mahzam were speaking to the media following a closed-door public engagement session with more than 100 participants to discuss how to protect women and girls from online harm.
The session was conducted after an offensive online poll came to light last month, which ranked female Islamic religious teachers according to sexual attractiveness.
Ms Sim said on Saturday: "I think that most women will agree that (in Singapore), our emphasis on law and order creates a very safe environment for them. We walk on the streets without worrying too much about what will happen to us... We have also come very far in terms of women's access to education, as well as to the workplace."
But she noted the situation online is different and concerning, with reports of women getting harassed or receiving unwelcome advances. Women in those cases may not know what to do because that treatment is "quite different from their experience in real life", said Ms Sim.
And while the harassment may take place online, the harm and distress that is caused affects victims in their real lives.
DESENSITISED
There is also a potential spillover effect, with people becoming desensitised to online discourse that objectifies women, which may eventually affect how both sexes interact with each other in real life.
Furthermore, some of these online interactions can be a precursor to offline harm, such as sexual violence, said Ms Sim.
Ms Sim, who was formerly senior minister of state at the Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI), said she and a team at MCI have been engaging various stakeholders in an effort to tackle this issue.
A Singapore Together Alliance for Action will be launched to deal with online harm, especially the kind targeted at females. One of the ways this could be done is by setting up a one-stop centre for victims to find support, where people can also report problematic online content.
But the rest of society has a part to play too, and Ms Sim and Ms Rahayu said they were heartened by the fruitful discussion they had with participants who raised issues such as the need to educate the next generation and foster respectful interactions between men and women.
One of the participants, Madam Hazlina Abdul Halim, noted that in the 21st century, "locker room talk" where women are objectified has migrated out of locker rooms into online chat groups.
Madam Hazlina, president of the Singapore Muslim Women's Association, said: "The question is, how do we change the mindset so that people do not even think (such thoughts), let alone say them?"
She added that more education is also needed for older generations so they can understand the severity of what goes on in the online world, which their children may be experiencing.
Ms Rahayu noted that gender stereotypes are sometimes perpetuated by women as well, and both sexes need to be involved in tackling this issue together.
"We should apply some of our offline values to the online space, where some of us may be a little bit desensitised."
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