Singapore Council of Women

Last updated

The Singapore Council of Women (SCW) was an organization based in Singapore. The group advocated for women's rights and was especially vocal on issues relating to women and marriage. The SCW also made sure it had a good relationship with the media, and wrote often to newspapers about women's issues. [1] SCW lectured on women's rights in various neighborhoods in Singapore. [2] The advocacy efforts of SCW helped speed the passage of the Women's Charter.

Contents

History

The idea to create a women's council came about at a meeting consisting of Malay women in October 1951. [3] Shirin Fozdar held a public meeting where women, such as Elizabeth Choy, Vilasini Menon, Mrs. Robert Eu and Amy Laycock came to decide what such a group would look like. [4] The SCW was based on the National Council of Women in India, [5] which was an inspiration to the women at the meeting. [4] The Singapore Council of Women (SCW) was formally created on April 4, 1952. [6] [7] Fozdar served as the first secretary, [5] and Tan Cheng Hiong was the first president. [8] The executive committee of the SCW was very diverse in nature, featuring women of Chinese, Malay, Eurasian and European heritage. [1] Membership was at its peak of around 2,000 in 1955. [7]

During the 1950s, the SCW campaigned against the practice of polygamy, [9] advocated for child care and lobbied the government to make reforms in prostitution. [10] SCW was also concerned about women and divorce practices of the time. [11] In February 1953, the SCW opened a girls club at the Joo Chiat Welfare Centre. [12] In 1959, the SCW lobbied the country's political parties to include women's rights under marriage in their platforms. [9] The lobbying of the SCW helped speed the passage of the Women's Charter and the Muslim Ordinance. [13]

SCW lost much of its momentum after the passage of laws protecting women's rights. [14] The group dissolved in 1971 after there had been a decline in membership. [14]

Notable members

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tan Cheng Lock</span> Malaysian politician,1st President of the Malaysian Chinese Association

Tan Cheng Lock KBE JP was a Malaysian Peranakan businessman and a key public figure who devoted his life to fighting for the rights and the social welfare of the Chinese community in Malaya. Tan was also the founder and the first president of the Malayan Chinese Association (MCA), which advocated his cause for the Malayan Chinese population.

LGBT art in Singapore, or queer art in Singapore, broadly refers to modern and contemporary visual art practices that draw on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender+ imagery and themes, addressing topics such as LGBT rights, history and culture in Singapore. Such queer art practices are often by Singaporean or Singapore-based visual artists and curators who identify as LGBT+ or queer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kwa Geok Choo</span> Singaporean lawyer

Kwa Geok Choo was a Singaporean lawyer. She was the wife of former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and the mother of current Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. She was also the co-founder and partner of law firm Lee & Lee.

This is a list of Singapore-related articles by alphabetical order. To learn quickly what Singapore is, see Outline of Singapore. Those interested in the subject can monitor changes to the pages by clicking on Related changes in the sidebar. A list of to do topics can be found here.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">All-Malaya Council of Joint Action</span> Political party in Malaysia

The All-Malaya Council of Joint Action (AMCJA) was a coalition of political and civic organisations in Malaya formed to participate in the development of a constitution for post-war Malaya in preparation for independence and to oppose the Constitutional Proposals for Malaya which eventually formed the basis of the Federation of Malaya Agreement.

Prostitution in Singapore in itself is not illegal, but various prostitution-related activities are criminalized. This includes public solicitation, living on the earnings of a prostitute and maintaining a brothel. In practice, police unofficially tolerate and monitor a limited number of brothels. Prostitutes in such establishments are required to undergo periodic health checks and must carry a health card.

<i>Kallang Roar the Movie</i> 2008 Singaporean film

Kallang Roar the Movie is a 2008 sports film on Singapore national football team’s legendary coach Choo Seng Quee. The film shows the events leading up to Singapore winning the Malaysia Cup in 1977, including the epic semi-final match against Selangor and the final against Penang.

In British Malaya, a Queen's Scholar was a holder of one of various scholarships awarded by the Government of the Straits Settlements to further their studies in the United Kingdom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2017 Singaporean presidential election</span> Presidential election in Singapore

The 2017 Singaporean presidential election was held to elect the next president of Singapore. Halimah Yacob was elected in an uncontested election due to lack of eligible candidates and she was the only candidate that was granted an eligibility certificate to contest in the 2017 presidential election, which was reserved for candidates from the Malay community, who had not held the presidency since 1970.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Khatijun Nissa Siraj</span> Singaporean womens rights activist (1925–2023)

Khatijun Nissa Siraj was a Singporean women's rights activist and the co-founder of the Young Women's Muslim Association (PPIS) and the Muslim Women's Welfare Council. In response to an epidemic within the Singaporean Muslim community of women being abandoned by their husbands through inexpensive, informal divorces, Siraj and the PPIS successfully pressed for the formation of a Syariah Court. Siraj was the first case worker for the court, which had authority over marriages and divorces. In addition to her work with the PPIS, Siraj worked with a number of other organizations that worked to improve women's welfare.

The Singapore Women's Hall of Fame is a virtual hall of fame that honors and documents the lives of historically significant women in Singapore. The hall is the creation of the Singapore Council of Women's Organisations (SCWO), and grew out of an earlier nine-member wall of fame that the organization created in 2005.

Shirin Fozdar (1905–1992) was a women's rights activist. Born in India, she worked on women's rights and welfare issues in her native country in the 1930s and 1940s. In 1950 she and her husband moved to Singapore to help spread the Baháʼí Faith. In Singapore, she became a champion against marriage inequality and polygamy; she was instrumental in the founding of the Singapore Council of Women and of the nation's Syariah Court, and was a leader in the advocacy effort that saw the Women's Charter become law.

Che Zahara binte Noor Mohamed was a Malay activist who worked towards women's and children's rights in Singapore. She was one of the first Malay women in Singapore to fight for modern women's rights, according to journalist, Hajah Halizah Mohd Som. Che Zahara is the founder of the first Muslim women's welfare organization in Singapore, the Malay Women's Welfare Association (MWWA). Over the course of thirteen years, she "looked after over 300 women and orphans regardless of race or religion." She not only gave people a home, but also taught them religious knowledge and basic economic skills, such as sewing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Linda Chen</span> Chinese-born, Singaporean linguist, writer

Linda Chen was a Chinese-born, Singaporean linguist, writer, feminist and businesswoman. Having immigrated from China as a young child, Chen learned Chinese, English, and Malay and used her linguistic talent to write a Malay-Chinese dictionary that became widely used to teach Malay in the 1950s and 1960s. During her student days, she became active in the anti-colonial and women's rights movement. Because of her activism and heritage, she was seen as a threat and a ring-leader of communist infiltration into the country. Despite her denying that she was a communist, she was arrested in 1956 and jailed for 20 months, detained and kept under surveillance for four years between 1959 and 1963, and rearrested in 1963 as part of Operation Coldstore. After her release from prison, she lived in London for four years and then returned to Singapore, where she managed her family's multi-national book store until her death.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Checha Davies</span>

Checha Davies (1898–1979) was an Indian-born Singaporean social worker and women's rights activist. In her younger days, she was an educator but after her move to Singapore she was active in church work and social service organisations, serving as president of the YWCA on two separate occasions. Davies was instrumental in the committee which drafted the rules for the Singapore Council of Women and served on its executive committee. Davies received the Public Service Star in 1970 and was inducted into the Singapore Women's Hall of Fame in its inaugural year, 2014.

Chua Jim Neo was a Singaporean chef and cookbook writer best known for Mrs. Lee's Cookbook, which preserves the recipes of Peranakan cuisine. Chua was also the mother of Lee Kuan Yew, the first Prime Minister of Singapore.

Seow Peck Leng was a Singaporean politician, educator and advocate for women's rights. She was one of the first women members of parliament in Singapore and the only woman of an opposition party at the time.

Ann Elizabeth Wee was a British-born Singaporean academic and social worker, who was called the founding mother of social work in Singapore. She was known for pioneering professional social work in Singapore and as the longest-serving head of the Department of Social Work in the National University of Singapore. She was the inaugural recipient of the lifetime volunteer achievement award of the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports in 2009, was honored with the Meritorious Service Medal in 2010 and was inducted into the Singapore Women's Hall of Fame in 2014.

Tan Cheng Hiong (1904–1999) was a Singaporean women's rights activist and the first president of the Singapore Council of Women. She was inducted into the Singapore Women's Hall of Fame on 18 March 2016.

Julie Tan Eng Poh was a women's rights activist in Singapore who served as the founding president of the Singapore Council of Women's Organisations.

References

Citations

  1. 1 2 Chew 1994, p. 117.
  2. ↑ Chew 1994, p. 118.
  3. ↑ Chew 1994, p. 114.
  4. 1 2 Chew 1994, p. 115.
  5. 1 2 Wee 2011, p. 63.
  6. 1 2 "Shirin Fozdar". Singapore Women's Hall of Fame. Archived from the original on 2016-11-18. Retrieved 2017-05-23.
  7. 1 2 Chew 1994, p. 116.
  8. 1 2 "Tan Cheng Hiong". Singapore Women's Hall of Fame. Archived from the original on 2016-10-15. Retrieved 2017-05-23.
  9. 1 2 Lyons 2008, p. 252.
  10. ↑ Chew 1994, p. 120.
  11. ↑ Chew 1994, p. 121.
  12. ↑ Chew 1994, p. 119.
  13. ↑ Chew 1994, p. 136.
  14. 1 2 Chew 1994, p. 137.
  15. ↑ "Checha Davies". Singapore Women's Hall of Fame. Archived from the original on 2016-10-13. Retrieved 2017-05-23.

Sources


This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.