Family violence task force recommends new laws to compel abusers to go for rehab

The new laws being recommended will allow the authorities to take immediate enforcement action and prevent any escalation of harm in cases of family violence. PHOTO: ST FILE

SINGAPORE - About 10 per cent of people who abuse their loved ones, especially the more serious cases, do not turn up for counselling sessions when asked to do so but soon they may not have a choice.

Legislative levers are about to be put in place that will compel them to go.

The Taskforce on Family Violence, in a report released on Thursday (Sept 23), said enforcement needs to be enhanced.

This will include moves like making it an offence to breach counselling orders, as well as mandatory assessment and treatment orders.

It also recommended that the Government make the breach of non-access, non-visitation and non-communication orders an arrestable offence.

These are new orders under the Women's Charter, which take reference from the Vulnerable Adults Act that the task force is proposing.

A non-access order prohibits a person from entering and remaining for a set amount of time in any place that the vulnerable person frequents.

Another type of order will stop a person from visiting or communicating with the victim.

Making it an offence will allow the authorities to take immediate enforcement action and prevent any escalation of harm.

These recommendations are part of efforts to take abusers to task and beef up their rehabilitation process.

Pave executive director Sudha Nair, commenting on those who breach counselling orders, said: "We cannot compel them to come. They tell us to 'go fly kite' (leave them alone), and there's nothing we can do.

"We try different ways to engage them but they don't want to come, so we need to tighten the legislative levers to compel them."

Pave is a social service agency that specialises in tackling family violence.

Dr Nair, who is a member of the task force, focused on the importance of counselling. Abusers, she said, are "people with bad behaviours but may be good people and may not realise the impact of their behaviours on their family because of the strong, rigid beliefs that they have".

She added: "Counselling actually helps them to come to terms with the fact that if they carry on with these kinds of behaviours, they are going to lose their families."

The task force also recommended that the courts be allowed to make mandatory assessment and treatment orders against those who have personal protection orders filed against them.

The courts now does not have any power to force someone with mental health conditions to undergo mandatory assessment or treatment, even if the underlying condition likely contributed to or exacerbated the risk of the person's violent behaviour.

According to data from family service centres, about 39 per cent of households with family violence concerns have a person with mental health concerns.

Last year, the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) and National Council of Social Services conducted a study involving persons who applied for personal protection orders or had such applications made against them.

It found that about 14 per cent of them had been diagnosed with mental health conditions before the first personal protection order incident.

The task force report said ordering mandatory treatment may be invasive, and added that safeguards must be in place, such as requiring an assessment and recommendation from a court-appointed psychiatrist on the suitability of the mandatory treatment, before a mandatory treatment order can be made by the courts.

Another recommendation is that the Government should study the feasibility of requiring high-risk perpetrators to undergo a structured residential programme for their rehabilitation.

This ensures that they are physically separated from the people they inflict violence on, and get the treatment they need to turn over a new leaf.

Minister of State for Social and Family Development Sun Xueling, one of the co-chairs of the task force, said: "The reason why we're proposing this is that we would like to effectively break the cycle of family violence, and we feel that it's important that we pay close attention to the perpetrators to ensure that they can better regulate their emotions, and that they would not use family violence to address issues that they face at home."

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