International Violence against Women Survey

Brief Description

Several small scale studies have appeared over the years in Singapore which attempt to give a picture of the socio-demographic profile of women (Seow, Poh, Yong, Anantharaman and Ooi 1995; Subordinate Courts 1998; Lim 2002; Foo and Seow 2005; Basu 2009) and children (Nair 2006). However, they are limited in scope as well since only those who actively seek help from public hospitals, the Family Court or a social service agency are covered. There has not been a systematic effort to uncover the true extent of male violence against women, the victims’ profiles and their experiences when seeking help from the police and so on through a victim survey. 

It is hoped that with the data collected, there will be greater understanding of the prevalence and types of violence against women in Singapore, the socio-demographic details of these victims, and issues such as the severity and perception of the violence, and their experience with the police and other support agencies. Even though any survey will inevitably suffer from some measurement errors (Cantor and Lynch 2000), it is hoped that the data will nevertheless be useful in three ways. Firstly, they offer a more accurate assessment than any previous studies; secondly, they serve as a baseline from which we can evaluate present laws and policies in Singapore; and thirdly, they make it possible to undertake cross cultural analyses of violence against women in other parts of the world.