When families cover up sexual abuse of a child, it can remain hidden for years: Shanmugam

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SINGAPORE – Between 2021 and 2025, there were 36 cases involving those who ill-treated a child under their care or allowed another person to abuse the child that led to prosecution.

Senior Minister K. Shanmugam gave this reply on Oct 6 to a parliamentary question about the number of cases that involved a family member being charged with failing to protect a child from sexual abuse in the past five years.

The 36 cases were prosecuted under Section 6 of the Children and Young Persons Act (CYPA), which states it is an offence for a person “who has custody, charge or care of a child or young person to ill-treat the child or young person, or to cause, procure or knowingly permit another person to do so”.

Ill-treatment in this context includes sexual abuse. The police do not separately track cases where a person knowingly allowed a child or young person to be sexually abused, Shanmugam said.

Abdul Muhaimin Abdul Malik (Sengkang GRC) also asked if the current provisions to protect children are sufficient, especially in cases where the abuse went undetected for years.

Shanmugam, who is also Co-ordinating Minister for National Security and Home Affairs Minister, said: “Where the family or household are involved in covering up child sexual abuse, it would be difficult for the offence to be picked up, and the sexual abuse could remain hidden for years.

“This situation is common in many countries.”

In 2024, a 45-year-old woman in Singapore was jailed four years and six months for covering up her son’s years-long sexual abuse of his younger sister, starting from when the girl was five.

The son, who is eight years older than his sister, was jailed for 11½ years and given seven strokes of the cane.

To strengthen early detection and reporting of abuse, the Government has put in place various measures, Shanmugam said.

These include the training of professionals who work with children, such as those in healthcare and education, to recognise and report abuse.

Children also learn about personal safety and where to seek help.

In September, the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) officially launched its Sensemaking Alerts for Frontline Engagement and Response (SAFER) unit to better detect and prevent child abuse by connecting the dots between information about families with child protection concerns held by law enforcement and other agencies.

Shanmugam also said there are also severe penalties to deter abuse.

For example, offenders who commit serious violent or sexual offences, including rape or sexual penetration of minors, and who pose a substantial risk of re-offending may be sentenced under the Sentence for Enhanced Public Protection.

Under this sentencing regime, which started on July 31, offenders would be detained for a minimum period of between five and 20 years, as determined by the Court.

At the end of the minimum term, the offender will be released only if he or she is assessed to no longer pose a threat to the public. This is unlike a jail term, where the offender has to be released after serving the fixed term imposed by the Court.

Risk algorithm to keep children safer

Replying another parliamentary question on Oct 6, Minister for Social and Family Development Masagos Zulkifli shared more details about the risk algorithm used by the SAFER unit.

For a start, SAFER will include information from various sources on families with children below seven where there are child protection concerns: the Central Narcotics Bureau, the police and MSF agencies, such as case records from the National Anti-Violence and Sexual Harassment Helpline (NAVH) and pre-school data from the Early Childhood Development Agency.

SAFER will analyse data relevant to assessing a child’s safety and well-being such as pre-school attendance records, pre-school withdrawals, offences involving a child as a victim of harm, and drug and sexual offences.

When potential child protection concerns are flagged by the SAFER unit, trained professionals will review them to decide the next course of action.

Masagos explained that the MSF developed SAFER’s risk algorithm based on relevant Government datasets, profiles of actual child protection cases and professional practice knowledge.

“It was designed to reflect risk factors and patterns observed in real-world cases and was not adapted from any published algorithm,” he added.

Masagos said the MSF will regularly monitor, validate and refine the algorithm to ensure it performs as intended and remains fit for purpose.

This includes assessing its effectiveness in identifying cases of concern, while appropriately balancing the risks of unnecessary alerts and missed cases.

Masagos emphasised that SAFER supports but does not replace professional judgment.

He added that the MSF will continue to explore additional databases that can improve SAFER’’s effectiveness. Any such inclusion of new datasets will be assessed based on factors such as child protection needs, proportionality and data governance safeguards.