All
able-bodied boys in Singapore, including citizens and permanent
residents, are conscripted for 2 years of full-time military training
once they reach 18 under the National Service programme founded in 1967
to defend the republic from attack and promote national cohesion.
ROSLAN RAHMAN/AFP/Getty Images)
A transgender woman has won her appeal to remain in the UK
in a bid to avoid serving her remaining mandatory National Service
duties in the Singapore army. The Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum
Chamber) in the UK dismissed the Home Secretary's appeal of an earlier
ruling to allow the Singaporean's asylum application.
The transgender, who was only known as EFH in the court
documents, fought against returning to Singapore on fears that she will
be forced to undertake National Service duties. She had completed part
of her mandatory National Service between December 2001 and June 2004.
However, the mandatory service does not end there. Once the
compulsory two-year national service is completed, all servicemen, often
called Reservists or Operationally-Ready National Serviceman, are
called up for training and exercises regularly.
Reservists make up more than 80% of Singapore's military
defence and are considered the backbone of the Singapore Armed Forces.
As such, EFH will be liable for National Service duties until 2023.
The statutory age cap of reservist obligation is up to to
age of 40 and for commissioned officers, it is up to the age of 50. If
she fails to serve, she will have breached the Enlistment Act and will
face up to three years in jail or a fine of S$10,000 (£5,093, €6,488,
$7,440) or both.
EFH had extended her student leave twice. Completion of
National Service can be deferred for studies purposes. On her second
application for further leave to remain in the UK in November 2012, she
said that she had "transgendered and lesbian and that her gender was not
legally or socially recognised in Singapore."
The Home Office had argued that the punishment for not performing her
National Service was not persecution as it was not linked to
discrimination. However, her lawyer, S. Chelvan told Channel News Asia
that when EFH returns to Singapore, she will be "returning a woman to
her home country to be punished as a man."
She is liable to
fulfill National Service duties as she has yet to undergo a full gender
reassignment procedure, according to her lawyer, who described her as a
"pre-operative trans woman."
She
was born a male in 1983 and realised in 2002 that she was
psychologically a female. In 2004, EFH went to the UK to study and while
in the UK, "presented herself as a female and behaved and socialised as
such in the UK," according to the court documents.
The Singapore
Ministry of Defence told Channel News Asia: "All male Singapore citizens
and Permanent Residents above the age of 18 years are required to serve
National Service if they are medically fit. Those who are legally
declared female will not be required to serve NS."
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