The Group B streptococcus (GBS) bacteria outbreak may have died down, but stalls which used to sell ready-to-eat raw-fish dishes are still reeling from the effects of the scare.

Food stall owners interviewed by The Sunday Times said they have seen their takings drop drastically. Mr Kiang Choon Tong, 68, stallholder of Soon Heng Pork and Fish Porridge at Amoy Street Food Centre, said business has fallen 60 per cent compared to November last year. His stall now sells only pork porridge.

Lye Bo at Alexandra Village Food Centre has switched to selling noodles instead of porridge. “People still cannot get over it (the GBS outbreak). It is not just going to the hospital a few days, but having to amputate your limbs,” said Madam Lee Wai Ping, 41, one of its stallholders.

Mr Tan Whee Boon, 51, a former technician, had his hands and feet amputated last August after he suffered food poisoning from eating a raw-fish dish.

In December last year, the National Environment Agency (NEA) banned food outlets from using freshwater fish in all ready-to-eat raw-fish dishes. This was after about 150 GBS cases were linked to the consumption of raw freshwater fish toman (snakehead) and song fish (Asian bighead carp), which are typically eaten with porridge .

In response to ST queries, NEA, the Ministry of Health (MOH) and the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) said the ban on using freshwater fish in raw-fish dishes will remain until further notice.

After the ban, some stalls obtained approval to use saltwater salmon in their raw-fish dishes instead, but this has not helped them win back their customers.

Ah Chiang Porridge in Tiong Poh Road, for instance, got the approval to sell ready-to-eat raw salmon in January but its stall supervisor Cher Kee Chiang, 69, said business has plummeted. “Before the incident, we sold about 250 plates of ready-to-eat raw fish every weekday, now we sell at most 35 plates.

“People don’t really like the Norwegian salmon we sell, because it is too soft. It does not suit Singaporeans’ taste.”

As of March 31, 30 food stalls were approved by NEA to resume the sale of ready-to-eat raw-fish, or mainly salmon, dishes. They include those in hotels and hawker centres. GBS bacteria are commonly found in the gut and urinary tract in about 15 to 30 per cent of adults without causing any disease, but they may sometimes cause infections of the skin, joints, heart and brain. There were more than 350 GBS infection cases last year, with two fatalities.

In their reply dated April 4, the authorities said that there have been fewer than five GBS cases a week so far this year, similar to the usual “baseline” figures. This compares with nine to 10 cases per week for the first six months of last year.

“We are unable to establish any link between the baseline GBS cases and consumption of raw fish,” said MOH, NEA and AVA.

Mr Cher hopes there will be some clear answers soon about last year’s GBS outbreak.

“We want to know the origins of the problem, whether it was due to problems with the fish, or improper handling practices. We don’t know the clear reason why we cannot sell raw fish,” he added.

Not all customers, however, remain wary of eating raw fish.

Sales manager Jerryl Ling, 24, is glad that stalls are now selling raw salmon with porridge. “I enjoy sashimi, and I love Chinese yu sheng. I was quite devastated when GBS broke out and I couldn’t eat the song fish,” he said.

kcarolyn@sph.com.sg

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This article was first published on April 17, 2016.
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Criminal lawyers and professionals who deal with victims of sexual abuse have called for greater clarity in the law after the High Court last week ruled that a woman cannot be found guilty of sexual penetration of a minor.

But lawyers also agreed that the judge was right to decide the way he did, and that it is up to Parliament to amend Section 376A(1)(b) of the Penal Code if the intent was to cover both male and female offenders.

Zunika Ahmad, 39, had pleaded guilty to six counts of sexual penetration of a minor, and one count of sexual exploitation under the Children and Young Persons Act.

Over a period of around 22 months, she regularly had sex with a girl using a dildo. The abuse started in 2012, when the victim was 13.

Zunika lived as man, and no one suspected otherwise until the girl went to the police.

But last Tuesday, Senior Judge Kan Ting Chiu rejected her guilty pleas to the charges of sexual penetration and ruled that Section 376A(1)(b) did not apply to women. He sentenced her to eight months in jail for the other charge.

Section 376A(1)(b) was enacted in 2007 after a review of the Penal Code. It states that “any person (A) who sexually penetrates, with a part of A’s body (other than A’s penis) or anything else”, a person under the age of 16, is guilty of an offence.

A person found guilty of an offence under the section could be punished with up to 10 years’ imprisonment, a fine, or with both.

If the minor is below 14 years old, the perpetrator could receive up to 20 years’ imprisonment and may be liable to a fine or caning as well.

But the judge reasoned that the reference to a person who has a penis meant that A could not, therefore, be a woman.

He did refer to the parliamentary debate that took place before the law was passed. Then Senior Minister of State for Home Affairs Ho Peng Kee had highlighted public concerns over female sexual abuse of male minors.

But the judge ruled that his hands were tied given the clear phrasing of the law.

The decision led the Association of Women for Action and Research (Aware) to question the seeming inconsistency between the intention of Singapore’s policymakers and the way the provision was interpreted.

Ms Jolene Tan, senior manager for programmes and communications at Aware, wrote in a letter to the Forum page published last Friday that “it is unjust to treat the sexual assault of a minor differently based on the gender or anatomy of the perpetrator”.

She argued that the words “other than A’s penis” in Section 376A(1)(b) seems to be targeted at catching female abusers.

Speaking to The Sunday Times, she said that if the precedent set last week is followed, even clear cases of sexual assault could fall through the cracks. And this could lead to victims being denied justice.

Aware runs a sexual assault care centre that caters to both male and female victims, although it mostly works with women.

Last year, of the 267 cases handled by the centre, 15 per cent involved child sexual abuse. Out of these, more than half involved penetrative assault.

Ms Lena Teo, assistant director for counselling at the Children-at-Risk Empowerment Association, said while a child may not fully understand or be affected by the sentence the perpetrator receives, this may not be the same for older victims.

What is more, sexual assault on a child will cause him or her to grow up with some form of trauma, she added. Whether the perpetrator is a man or a woman, she said, “at the end of the day, the hurt to the victim is the same”.

The victim, now 18, had told this paper last week that she still suffers nightmares and can hardly sleep. “She took advantage of my family situation, betrayed my trust and destroyed our lives,” she said of Zunika.

She said she was saddened that Zunika was acquitted of nearly every charge. “I thought she was a man when she took my virginity, so why can’t she be charged like a man?” she asked.

Criminal lawyer Sunil Sudheesan agreed there could be more clarity in Section 376A, but “if there is a benefit of doubt, it should be given to the accused, as was done in this case”.

“The solution is to relook this section, and other sections involving person A, B, or C,” he said, and make clear the sexes involved.

On concerns that this ruling may lead to harsher punishment for men, veteran lawyer Amolat Singh said this is why it is especially important in criminal law that sections set out the precise boundaries of conduct for offenders. “There are some rules of interpretation when you look at statutes. The basic principle is to give the words their ordinary, literal reading.”

If it was Parliament’s intention for the section to be gender neutral, he added, it is up to Parliament to make the necessary amendments.

Criminal lawyer Rajan Supramaniam said there is a lacuna, or lexical gap, in addressing such a situation. The accused got off lightly because she is a woman, he said, and the ambiguity in wording is an issue that has to be addressed.

He added: “Judges cannot make or amend the laws. It is for the legislature to review.”

This article was first published on April 17, 2016.
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Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong began his trip to Jordan yesterday with a visit to the country’s most well-known site – the sprawling ancient city of Petra.

On arriving in Petra, Mr Lee, who is on his first official visit to Jordan, was presented with a red-and-white keffiyeh, a symbolic headdress for Jordanians, held in place by a black rope-like circlet known as the agal.

Mr Lee and his wife were accompanied by Mr Nayef H. Al-fayez, Jordan’s Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, and hosted by Mr Mohammad Al-Nawafleh, the chief commissioner of the Petra Development and Tourism Authority.

Known for its rose-red rock structures, Petra was a bustling city whose strategic location near the Mediterranean and Red Seas saw merchants trade frankincense from southern Arabia, silks from China and spices from India in its markets.

It also saw a constant stream of travellers and pilgrims, who marvelled at its hydrological engineering, which Mr Lee was briefed about.

To cope with the harsh desert environment and arid landscape, the Nabataean people built the city’s developed structures and systems to manage the supply of water, especially during periods of dry weather. Petra was the capital of the Nabataean Empire from around the 1st century BC, and the Romans took over some 200 years later.

But a large earthquake in AD363 destroyed much of the city.

Another quake in AD551 and a change in trade routes led to its abandonment, until it was rediscovered by a Swiss explorer in 1812.

Now a Unesco world heritage site, Petra was also the location for a number of scenes in the Hollywood movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

It was also named one of the new seven wonders of the world in 2007. Today, tourism is a key contributor to the Jordanian economy.

PM Lee Hsien Loong explores Petra

Click on thumbnail to view photos. Source: 

The Straits Times

However, tourist guides and others in the industry lament that the ongoing conflict in Jordan’s neighbours – Syria and Iraq – has affected visitor numbers.

Yesterday evening, Environment and Water Resources Minister Masagos Zulkifli and MP Intan Azura Mokhtar also had a closed-door dialogue with Singapore students pursuing higher education in Islamic religious studies and Arabic in Jordan.

Mr Lee also met Singapore students at a dinner reception.

Today, Mr Lee will be hosted to lunch by Jordan’s King Abdullah II.

He will also meet Prime Minister and Defence Minister Abdullah Ensour, who will host him to dinner.

This article was first published on April 17, 2016.
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