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Access To Children : Do Men Have Rights In Singapore?

Access to Children : Do Men have rights in Singapore?

• Paul, a divorced father hovered anxiously inside the Neighbourhood Police Post. It was 8:45 pm. The sky was already pitch black outside. Inside the police post, the spartan set up of table and chair perched beneath the benevolent smiles of two portraits offered little distraction. He quickly averted his eyes from the sympathetic gaze of the President and His First Lady, a portrait of matrimonial harmony so discordant with the turmoil roiling in Paul's topsy turvy world. He nodded curtly at the police corporal seated behind the desk,  whipped out his handphone, and pressed the call button in his right hand as he clutched his Court Order in his left.

• “The Respondent shall have telephone access to the child Victor daily up to 9:00 pm”

That was the embodiment of the great  body of men's rights in Singapore. No wonder Paul's world was topsy turvy. Lee Kuan Yew's book ‘From Third World to First World' summed up the marvelous sweeping changes that transformed Singapore from a Confucian and patricarchial society into a Westernised and feminised version of utopia. But at what cost? One might wonder.

It was not much more than a century ago that not-so-ancient China's Confucian men owned their wives and children, body and soul – if not their hearts! The patriarch commanded conjugal rights from their wives, and respect, if not love from his children. Fast forward into twenty-first century Singapore and Paul has lost his wife and children blessed with the full might of the law. How did that come about?

• As he listened impatiently to the ring tone on his handphone, Paul cursed and swore at Bertha Goldstein and her women's liberation movement that changed the world almost fifty years ago. Or so he thought.

The real changes began a century ago with the First World War in Europe. Prior to that, the industrial revolution in England had already unleashed a nation of workshops that required neither brute strength nor stout hearts. But it was the Great World Wars that drove the industrial warriors into battlefields and left their workshops in the hands of women folk. Once unleashed, there was no putting-the-genie-back-into-the-bottle. Over the past decades, competition between the great economies ensured the success of those nations whose laws encouraged the expansion of the workforce and protected the rights of women corporate warriors. Bertha Goldstein was merely a product of that transformation.

Singapore jumped on that same bandwagon. How long could Confucian logic hold sway over the minds of women when they were needed to share the corporate ladder with men? Reversing that transformation would drive us back to the kampungs of Sang Nila Utama. So, what was Paul to make of his topsy turvy world?

• 'Hello, can I speak to Victor?' Paul asked hopefully into his handphone.
• ‘Oh, it's you,' the ex-wife's voice at the other end of the line sounded irritable. There was a short pause and sound of the receiver being passed from one person to another.
• ‘Victor?' an older, rougher voice barked from the handphone,'Victor not in.' Bang! The handphone line went dead abruptly.
• The police corporal's eyebrow shot up in mock horror. This was not the first time. It was already a routine. Paul had switched his handphone to speaker phone so that the police corporal could be his witness. Paul turned off his handphone and filled in the police report. The corporal duly recorded the details, the time and the grounds of complaint.
• ‘My wife and her pesky mother!' Paul stewed indignantly, ‘The two women can drive a man crazy. Victor not in? My son is only eight years old! My wife would not let him out of her sight. Where can he be so late at night? He's definitely at home. They just don't want to let me speak to him. All I want is to wish him good luck for his coming examinations. They don't care about this Court Order.' Paul shook the Court Order in his left fist at the corporal.
• ‘There's nothing we can do,' the corporal answered with a shrug of his shoulder, ‘men have very little rights.'
• ‘Can I have a copy of my police report?' Paul nodded at the corporal emphatically, ‘I'm gathering evidence.'
• The corporal sighed. Men have little rights. That was a sobering thought, even for a nineteen year old police corporal.

Half a century ago, Singapore was a sleepy Third World colony where women had little rights under customary laws. They needed protection. The Women's Charter was first enacted in 1961 as the shining armour for women to use against the knights that they had married.

Now half a century later, the Women's Charter had morphed into a sword in the hands of educated, career oriented, demanding and exacting women. Having lost their first flush of youth and convinced that they were the victims of male chauvinism, they were eager to exact their pound of flesh. The majority of these women wanted their ex-husbands out of their lives and their children's lives. So, they placed much hurdles to impede and reduce their ex-husbands access to their children.

In 1988 the Singapore High Court opined that :  “Thousands of years of human experience has shown that young children are always better off with their natural mothers.” This was despite the father being a successful businessman and the mother being a dance hostess. This was also despite the Social Welfare Officer recommending that the father should be granted care and control of the child (click here for Young Children). It was only in this decade that UK experts appreciated the role of fathers in childhood development and their link to less street violence, less drugs and better academic achievements! They discovered that children grew up with better discipline when they had a father figure in their lives. In Singapore, a 2003 National Technology University survey and thesis concluded that fathers tended to be the disciplinarian and the presence of a father figure (in both intact and broken families) led to less dsiciplinary problems at school.

A father who fights for access rights is not fighting for some mushy tearful reunion. He is fighting for the development of his children into disciplined and productive citizens of society. Obtaining that Court Order for access is just the first step. The more crucial step is getting his ex-wife to obey that Court Order. A 2003 UK Court survey found that 40% of divorced women admitted to thwarting their children's access time with their ex-husbands who were the children's fathers (click here for Teenage Violence). What of the smarter women who did not admit to contempt of Court? This is a real problem.

But should ex-husbands apply to jail their ex-wives for contempt of Court when their ex-wives ignore the access spelt out in the Court Order? Would the Court mete out such a harsh punishment for such infractions? Would placing ex-wives behind bars be in the best interests of the children? How would incarceration of the children's primary care giver ever benefit the children? If not incarceration, what else could the Court do? Would even punishing the ex-wives with a slap on the wrist and payment of legal costs incurred by the ex-husbands be sufficient to persuade wayward ex-wives into compliance with Court orders?

In reality, ex-wives can seize on any multitude of excuses to appear as damsels in distress before the Family Court. What does the Family Court make of tearful ex-wives, wives who can find ambiguity in even the most carefully worded Court Order, or who can understand it in a different way from the ex-husbands, or who can find a multitude of emergencies where the safety of their children require them to ignore the Court Order. If the Women's Charter is the shining armour, the Court is the new knight. Will the new knight order costs against the very damsel that he should protect?

The Women's Charter was last century's affirmative action that is no longer suitable for our brave new world. The very name suggests that the interests of men, children and family may be held hostage to the imginative, inventive and highly educated damsel in distress. It is time to replace it with a Family Charter.

In the United States, men are starting to question the way the Courts handled custody, care and control and access issues. Warren Farrell, a celebrated professor, writer and women's advocate (who was a director of the National Organsiation for Women in New York) has expressed the opinion that it may be more beneficial for children if daily care and control (also called custody in United States) are given to ex-husbands. The rationale for his view was that ex-husbands were usually less likely to hinder ex-wives' access to children. The professor's argument was that if fathers were given daily care and control, children would end up having more of their mothers (in addition to their fathers). Whether one agrees with the professor or otherwise, his arguments and observations do show how complex and subtle are the dynamics of the divorced family. What cannot be achieved directly, may be achieved indirectly for the interests of the children. The broken family is still a family!

A Family Charter should provide options for the Court to increase access time if the ex-wife hinders the ex-husband's access to their children – not as a mere replacement of access time lost, but as a deterent. And if ex-husbands are less likely to hinder ex-wife's access to children, the Court should consider whether to transfer daily care and control to the ex-husband so that children may have more of both parents. And such options should be enshrined in the Family Charter.

A Family Charter should also view the family as a unit that acknolwedges the grandparent-grandchild dynamics in family relationships. The Women's Charter recognises access by ex-husband and ex-wives only. Hence, one hardly sees any Court Order that grants access rights to paternal grandparents. But why not? Would children not benefit from the love and stability of relationship with grandparents? If the father was overseas, would the child not benefit from quality time with his grandparent? This illustrates the limitations of the Women's Charter enacted in the last century to protect women. In today's world, families need protection. A Family Charter would extend the scope for the Family Court to fall in line with Singapore's pro-family policies.

Society harbours many misconceptions about men and fathers. An example is illustrated in the King's Madness, a short fiction about confrontations between a lion cub and his distant father. But whatever ones' view of men and fathers, society generally believes in the doting grandparent. A Family Charter will bridge that gap between grandparent and grandchildren.

If we have a Family Charter in place, fathers such as Paul will be less likely to face an uncooperative ex-wife. The ex-wife would know that if she did not behave, the Court may give more access time to the ex-husband. Or God forbid – transfer daily care and control rights to the ex-husband! and at the same time, extend such rights to grandparents.

Jonathan Lee

About the Author

 The author is a lawyer practising at http://www.malkin-maxwell.com

The short story may be found at http://www.jonathanleebooks.com

Which eye do you use when you use your camera?

I am a photographer and I was talking with some friends this weekend about what eye they use when they look into the view finder and it is funny how random it is.. first we were thinking it had to do with what hand you write with, but that is not true either we found because I am Right Handed, but always use my left eye. Are there any thoughts on reasons? My sight is slightly better in my left eye, perhaps that could be the decider.

Okay try this little exercise out. If you have a small square or rectangle picture hanging on a wall in your house...stand about 15 feet away if possible. Stand where you are centered with the picture. Now put both arms out in front of your head forming a triangle with the thumb and fore finger of both hands. Now center the picture in this triangle with both eyes open. After you have it centered then close your left eye...where is the picture positioned...then close your right eye...where is the picture now. Which ever eye the picture is centered in is your dominant eye and is likely the eye you would use for photography. I don't know if this is always the case but it would be the norm.

Get Piano Lesson 3 (Part One) Sight-Reading Introduction

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