Justice or Equality?

When reading the article, I felt as though it was rather unfair as the woman featured was obviously having a tough time with two children to feed and no one to help her. Although the law has to be fair with everyone where everyone has to be treated equally, I feel that even though the equality criteria was met, the justice criteria was not. They should have taken her situation under consideration before serving out the punishment. Knowing that she was the only adult figure for her two children, they still had to put her in jail for five days resulting in a distant relative having to fly in to take care of her children. She even had to lie to her young daughter about the reasons for her absence as they were not mature enough to fully understand the situation.

However, my thoughts also strayed to the fact that Ms Carniago was in the wrong regardless of situation. As they say ‘prevention is better than cure’ and I thought about why she did not make the necessary arrangements to be able to get a proper job. If she had, she wouldn’t have been in this situation. Then I realised that as a mother of two who does not have anyone to depend on to take care of her kids, she needs to stay home. Therefore, it was not that she intentionally wanted to break the law, but rather she had little option. She needed the income in order to sustain her family and also be physically there to take care of her young children. These make her sentencing sound all the more unreasonable and also raises awareness to the tough situations that some are going through to make ends meet. Even though she was already working hard, this must have come in as an additional blow to her. 

I admired Ms Carniago as she came off as very strong and independent as she did not want to depend on the government alone. Although, she was in a tough scenario, with her husband in jail and also having to bring up two young children single-handedly. She also potrayed herself with a positive attitude. She was very strong minded to want to start her own business in order to sustain herself. We are also able to understand the extent of her situation in which she states “I know I did wrong... I can't run away from it. But I just want all this to be over so I can find work again and stop depending on handouts.” (Carniago, 2015, para.29) She demonstrates her strong personality here and also that she really needs the money enough to quickly get back to work. Also, it also hints at a social stigma of receiving government funds.

I think that Ms Carniago can get a job at a social enterprise that helps single mothers. An example is ChaCha cottage whereby mothers can work from home to make decorative, scented candles and beauty soap. This is useful and relevant to Ms Carniago as she used to trade in perfume and bedsheets and she also needs to stay home in order to take care of her children. Ms Carniago also is very skilled with her hands as her curry puff business were successful and also recognised. Therefore, she can use her talents to good use through this way and also obtain an income.

In conclusion, I think that the government should take the peoples’ personal problems into consideration and act accordingly. They should seek other methods to serve out the punishment also allow space for leniency. Instead, they should guide her to the correct path as she committed crime not out of choice but because her situation forced her into it. I hope that more of such situations could be looked into case by case. Singapore although being a rather wealthy country should also be able to empathize with people.