UPR Sexual Rights Database

The vast majority of female Muslim officers in the Public Service are already allowed to wear the tudung, except for those in uniform. Singapore will allow female Muslim public healthcare staff to wear a tudung with their uniform from November 2021.

Singapore continuously reviews our policies to ensure that vulnerable groups, including children, are protected. The Criminal Justice Reform Act 2018 enhanced protection for victims of sexual or child abuse offences, and reduced the stress they face in the criminal justice system. In 2019, we amended the Penal Code to strengthen protection for children and youths against sexual exploitation. The Children and Young Persons Act was also amended in the same year to extend protection to abused and neglected children from below 16 years to below 18 years.

Singapore’s approach to gender equality is founded on the principle of meritocracy where women in Singapore participate fully and equally in all spheres of life and at all levels. In 2017, Singapore’s first female President, Halimah Yacob, was elected into office.

Noted. About a quarter of the recommendations that we noted relate to the ratification of international human rights treaties. Singapore takes our treaty obligations seriously and engages actively with the relevant treaty bodies. We also have a process under our Inter-Ministerial Committee on Human Rights to actively review Singapore's ability to ratify additional human rights treaties. Since we cannot prejudge the outcome of the review process, we are unable to commit ourselves to ratifying any of these specific treaties at this time, apart from the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) and the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography (OP-CRC-SC), for which a review has already been completed. While Singapore may not be party to a particular human rights treaty yet, it does not mean that our outcomes are not already fully or largely in compliance with its objectives.

Noted. Section 377 A of the Penal Code on sodomy, which was inherited during the colonial history of Singapore, was not proactively enforced. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex persons were free to lead their lives. Parliament decided after an intense debate in 2007 to retain this law. The Prime Minister noted at that time that it was better to accept the legal untidiness and ambiguity of leaving the law as it was, and it would not be wise to force this issue by settling it one way or the other. Singapore firmly opposed discrimination and harassment, and did not discriminate against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex applicants to the civil service. The approach was "to live and let live", preserve the common space for all communities, and let society evolve gradually and decide collectively.