Child abuse cases on the rise in S’pore, VWOs and authorities work to raise awareness

SINGAPORE — Fed up with his young son Weijie’s (not his real name) antics in school, and stressed out from his job as a salesman, the father began abusing him.

He would hit and kick him, and make derogatory remarks about the nine-year-old, causing the child to melt down frequently. This led to Weijie’s grandfather filing a Personal Protection Order against him.

Four years on, the family is doing much better now.

Weijie moved into a therapeutic group home for two years to receive therapy and counselling in a safe environment, after which Big Love Child Protection Specialist Centre counselled the father on how to improve his attitude and behaviour towards his son.

Weijie’s grandmother, Susan (not her real name), visited the boy twice a week in the therapeutic home. She now takes care of him and his older brother, who is 21.

“I give Weijie a lot of love, and put in a lot of effort to take care of him,” she told reporters in Mandarin at the Big Love family carnival on Sunday (Oct 21).

“Big Love gave me encouragement, and advice to my son on how to take care of Weijie.”

Weijie’s story is one of the many cases of child abuse that Big Love, a programme under voluntary welfare organisation Montfort Care, has managed since it started in 2013. It has reached out to more than 1,000 children since then.

Singapore has seen a growing number of child abuse cases in recent years. Big Love handled 367 such cases between April 2017 and March 2018, up from 252 during the same period last year, and 177 the year before.

In 2017, the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) investigated 894 cases of child abuse, up from 873 cases in 2016, and 551 the year before.

To create awareness of child abuse and encourage parent-child bonding, Big Love marked its fifth anniversary with a family carnival at Our Tampines Hub on Sunday.

The centre, which worked with organisations such as Mendaki and World Vision for the carnival, collected more than 12,000 pledges against abuse and neglect from members of the public.

Speaking at the carnival, Minister for Social and Family Development Desmond Lee said that while the “vast majority” of children in Singapore grow up in loving homes, some are “not so fortunate”.

“For such children, it takes an entire community, and an extensive network of government agencies, stakeholders and partners to look out for them and protect them,” he added.

Big Love director Serene Tan said that the increase in child abuse cases could also be due to other reasons: More cases being reported amid more news coverage about child abuse, and more professionals being trained to detect it.

In order to pin down possible reasons for the rise, MSF is embarking on a research project next year, and it will seek to roll out initiatives in response to its findings. Big Love will be one of the participants of the project.

At Big Love, which employs 16 caseworkers and social workers, Ms Tan said that they find it difficult to hire more in order to reduce the heavy caseload.

“It takes a lot emotionally out of them. They go to their schools and homes… they work erratic hours also, like if a family member requests for them to go to their home at 11pm,” she added.