CHILDREN AND YOUNG PERSONS (AMENDMENT) BILL

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Order for Second Reading read.

The Minister for Community Development and Sports (Mr Abdullah Tarmugi): Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

The Children and Young Persons Act was last amended in 1993 to give the State more powers to protect children at risk and to initiate a more balanced approach towards the protection and rehabilitation of children and young people.

Sir, to ensure that the Act remains relevant and forward looking, my Ministry has consulted extensively with the Subordinate Courts, and relevant Government agencies. We also sought the views of the relevant civic groups and considered the recommendations made by several inter-Government Committees looking into issues related to juvenile delinquency.

The amendments that we are now proposing are the outcome of these consultations. Let me now go into the main amendments of this Bill.

Sir, among the sentencing options that the courts currently have for young offenders, include probation, fine, approved school orders, bonding of parents or guardians, etc. Clauses 19 and 20 of the Amendment Bill will allow the courts greater flexibility when meting out sentences by introducing new sentencing options which include:

(1) Family conferencing. This allows the court to bring together people who are directly affected by a juvenile's offending behaviour to reach a consensus on an appropriate course of action. It provides an opportunity for the juvenile to make reparations or tender an apology to the victim(s) of his offending behaviour.

(2) The community service order. This allows the court to require a juvenile to perform community service as reparation for his offence, either as a condition of a Probation Order or as a Stand-alone Order.

(3) Weekend or periodic detention order. This allows a juvenile who has committed a fairly serious offence, but has a supportive family environment, to remain with the family and continue his education without disruption. The juvenile can be detained during weekends in an institution for structured programmes as punishment or for rehabilitation.

(4) Probation with detention. Where juvenile offenders can be institutionalised over a period of not exceeding three months, this is targeted at juveniles who are suitable for probation but would benefit from exposure to a more structured and disciplined programme. It is also meant for probationers who breach their probation orders and need to be disciplined without a revocation of their probation orders. It is hoped that the tougher programme in the institution would have a salutary effect on the offender and reduce the likelihood of his/her re-offending.

Clauses 17 and 20 of the Amendment Bill will also address the problem of parents who relinquish their parental responsibilities once their child has been brought to the attention of the court. To sustain the positive changes during the rehabilitation process, the family has to be active in supporting the child. The Juvenile Court will have the discretionary power to order the involvement of parents or guardians in the rehabilitation of the child or young person. Parents or guardians who do not comply with any order can be fined up to $2,000 or have their bond forfeited.

The court will also be able to order the parents or guardians to appear before a medical practitioner, psychologist or a welfare officer for assessment. This will enable a professional to assess the parent's or guardian's physical, psychological, emotional and social well-being to determine the appropriate intervention for care and protection cases.

Clauses 16, 26 and 45 of the Bill will enhance the welfare and protection of children and young persons. Sir, there is no existing provision to protect the identity of children and young persons who are subjects or respondents in an investigation into an offence under the Act or the Penal Code from the broadcast media. Protecting their identity is crucial in order not to hamper the investigation process and to minimise the trauma that may occur with any disclosure. The Bill, therefore, will restrict all media reporting the proceedings in any Court from disclosing the identity of a juvenile, unless the Court or the Minister dispenses with the requirement in the interest of justice.

Amendments are also being made to protect those who are required to make a professional assessment in the best interest of the child or young person, especially in child abuse cases, where professional judgement should not be hindered or clouded by fear of legal implications. The provision will safeguard the interest of medical officers, welfare officers and the police who are often subjected to abuse and threat of legal suits by parents and guardians during the investigation of child abuse, child neglect or delinquent behaviour.

Children who are emotionally and psychologically abused usually suffer long-term effects, if not helped. There is currently no provision in the Act to require suspected cases of emotional or psychological abuse to receive professional assessment to ascertain abuse. The amendments, Sir, will empower the Protector to require a child or young person, who is suspected to be a victim of emotional or psychological abuse, to be assessed. Should a parent or guardian ignore the instruction, the Protector may remove the child or young person for assessment and treatment.

Clauses 19 and 44 of the Bill concern the transfer of young offenders to the Reformative Training Centre (RTC). Currently, the Centre, which is under the Prisons Department of the Ministry of Home Affairs, only takes in offenders aged 16-21 years. The proposed amendments will allow those aged 14-16 years who have committed a very serious offence to be transferred to the RTC. Sir, I would like to stress that there are strict conditions attached to this new provision, to ensure that the young person is given ample opportunity to reform within the juvenile justice system. For example, the young person must have gone through an MCDS Approved School before he can be directly admitted to RTC. Furthermore, the offender must be such an unruly character that he is beyond the rehabilitative ability of the juvenile justice system and that his presence in the MCDS Approved School would be disruptive for the rehabilitation of other juveniles there.

Clauses 31, 32, 38, 39 and 40 of the Bill concern the security and management of juvenile correctional institutions. The amendments will allow staff working in these institutions to use reasonable restraint on residents. However, Sir, there are strict guidelines to ensure that staff do not overstep the boundaries of their authority. For example, reasonable restraint or force is only allowed in emergency situations, such as when residents riot in the Home or where residents attack staff.

Clause 39 specifically states that every person detained under the Act in an approved school or approved home will serve the full period of detention and will be deemed to be in lawful custody until he or she is discharged. Should the person escape, he or she may be apprehended without warrant and be brought back to the approved school or approved home in which he or she was detained.

Clause 40, Sir, will also address the problem of parents, family members or ex-residents who smuggle contraband articles such as cigarettes, lighters, blades, glue and Chinese tobacco, or what they call "Ang Hoon", to residents in approved schools. Each year, Sir, there are about 10 such incidents in the Government-run homes. With the amendment, it will be an offence now to smuggle unauthorised or forbidden articles to residents in approved schools, approved homes, institutions or places of detention or remand homes.

Sir, my Ministry currently administers three approved schools, homes and institutions for juvenile offenders and children and young persons. Another three institutions are run by voluntary welfare organisations. The new provision will allow the Minister to appoint Governing Boards for the management of approved homes, schools and institutions for children and young persons established under section 62. The Boards will ensure good standards of management and practices in these institutions.

Mr Speaker, Sir, this Amendment Bill aims to improve the care, protection and rehabilitation of children and young persons. These amendments make the legislation more flexible and ensure parental responsibility and participation in the rehabilitation process. Parental responsibility is especially important, as parents must ultimately be the carers, nurturers and protectors of our children and young people. So they must take this responsibility seriously and the state should step in only as a last resort.

Sir, I beg to move.

Question proposed.

Dr S. Vasoo (Tanjong Pagar): Mr Speaker, Sir, we have had two days of long debate. I am sure you would appreciate Members to be short and precise. I hope that my other Members would also get to the point as I will be doing so.

Sir, the amendments in the Children and Young Persons (Amendment) Bill will make the Act more comprehensive. The provisions to deal with psychological abuse and to prescribe other forms of rehabilitation measures for the protection of children and young persons are indeed useful. This brings it in line with the provisions in many developed countries. It also meets the UN conventions on the rights of children. With these amendments, we have indeed moved to a very good milestone of development in terms of the protection of children and young persons in the context of Singapore.

Sir, whatever the rehabilitation measures, I think it is very important to ensure that families and individuals take responsibility for their behaviour. Unless we ensure this, then all these rehabilitation measures which the Bill has provided for will come to nought. I think that objective is indeed very critical and very important in the whole rehabilitation procedures that we are going to implement.

Sir, the protection of children against psychological abuse is indeed important. This is also timely in view of the increase in marital discords and divorces. Sir, the divorce rate has increased from 4.5% per thousand in 1989 to 7.1% per thousand in 1999. There is an increase, though not significant. But what is most important is that many of these children are caught between disputes of parents. Many of these children are innocent and they are in the line of crossfires of discords between parents, and they might suffer psychological abuse in these cases. It is very crucial, Sir, that at times of marital discord between parents we are able to ensure that services to protect their interests are available too. So what I would like to ask the Ministry is whether there are services that are going to be developed further to ensure that the needs of these children are being looked into.

Sir, unlike physical abuse, psychological abuse is an area which is very contentious and very difficult to establish. Therefore, I think there are likely to be disputes between the Ministry and the parents in terms of what and how one establishes psychological abuse. This issue has to be looked into very carefully, and I want to ask the Ministry what steps it would take to ensure that a case of psychological abuse is appropriately established, and what rehabilitation measures will be taken to deal with psychologically abusing parents.

Sir, in the rehabilitation of delinquent children and young persons, it is important to ensure that the less hardcore juvenile delinquents and young persons are separated from the hardcore in institutional care and treatment. This is necessary because we want to ensure that there will be less social contamination of those who are affected. I would like to ask the Ministry what steps it has taken to ensure that delinquents who are less hardcore are being treated differently and in different institution.

Sir, in the area of mobilisation of community support and implementation of community rehabilitation programmes for juvenile delinquents and young persons, I would like to find out from the Ministry whether there are new initiatives that are being undertaken, because institutional care, as we all know, is very costly, and it is very disruptive to the juveniles and young persons. It would be the last resort, as the Minister has put it, to institutionalise persons because, by institutionalising them, one breaks them up from the family, and family dynamics are disrupted. Therefore, it is very important to ensure that we have other means of rehabilitating young persons and juveniles within a community setting. So what I want to ask the Minister is what new steps and initiatives are being undertaken to ensure that we have in place more community rehabilitation programmes to assist delinquent juveniles and young persons in the community.

Mr Charles Chong (Pasir Ris): Mr Speaker, Sir, thank you for allowing me to join in this debate. Before going into my speech, I would like to assure the hon. Member who spoke before me that I intend to heed his advice and keep my speech very much shorter than his.

Sir, I support the Children and Young Persons (Amendment) Bill moved by the Minister. The objectives of the Bill are quite evident and worthy of support. Among other things, the Bill seeks to enhance the protection of children and young persons from possible ill treatment and neglect, expand the definition of cruelty, and engage parents in the rehabilitation of juveniles. As mentioned by the Minister, the Bill also introduces alternative sentencing options for juvenile offenders, such as a formal caution, a reprimand and community service, whilst remaining with the family. Sir, I support this approach.

Mr Speaker, Sir, while I support the Bill, I would like to sound a note of caution and perhaps express some minor reservations on certain clauses in the Bill which I hope the Minister and his officers would address. However well-intentioned the provisions of the Bill may be, I think we should be cautious in handling issues related to the family and guard against the state inadvertently taking over responsibilities in the upbringing of children that rightly should be left with the family. Intervention in family matters should be done only as a measure of last resort, and I am delighted to hear the Minister share this view.

The new section 4 of the Bill expands the definition of ill treatment to include any emotional injury. However, the Bill is not quite specific in the definition of emotional injury, and I share Dr Vasoo's concern for this lack of clear definition. There have been cases overseas where parents have been arrested and hauled to court for smacking their unruly children in public. In some countries, there is really no shortage of child experts who advocate that any form of corporal punishment on the child or a young person is an infliction of lasting emotional injury. It is my hope that the implementation of this Bill will not lead to a situation where parents can no longer decide on how they should discipline their children.

Clause 6 of the Bill amends section 10 and permits a magistrate's court, upon receiving any information or complaint that a relevant offence has been or is being committed against a child or a young person, to issue a warrant to remove the victim to a place of safety and to undergo medical and social assessment.

Sir, it is not uncommon in child custody cases for contending parties to make allegations of cruelty and neglect of the child against each other. But sometimes, these allegations may be quite unfounded. More harm may be done to the child if he or she is forcibly removed from a stable home environment while investigations are being conducted.

The new section 8 of the Bill also permits the Director, a protector or a police officer not below the rank of sergeant to remove a child or young person and commit him to a place of safety, if there are reasonable grounds to do so. The relevant authority can do this by entering any premises without warrant and with such assistance, and by such force as necessary, by night or by day, in order to remove a child and commit him to a place of safety. It is not difficult to foresee situations where such measures are indeed necessary in order to prevent possible harm or further injury from occurring to the child. However, it is also not difficult to imagine how much more emotional damage could be inflicted on the child if the complaints were eventually proven to be false. There should be safeguards implemented to avoid such situations from arising.

Sir, I support the new section 3 of the Bill which clearly defines when a child or a young person is in need of care and protection, for example, when he is abandoned or he has no parent or guardian to look after him, or when he is at risk of being ill-treated. However, I am not really comfortable with the inclusion of illegal hawking, gambling and other undesirable activities as situations where a child is in need of protection under the law. I am sure that the Minister would agree that the definition of "undesirable activities" is rather subjective and varies from individual to individual. I hope his officials would be judicious in the interpretation of this term and I look forward to a clearer definition of the term "undesirable activities" in future amendments to the Act.