By now, you must have heard about the shower filming scandal involving National University of Singapore (NUS) students Monica Baey (the victim) and Nicholas Lim.

It has been about a week since the news first broke on April 19, the Good Friday holiday.

Following reports of the incident, many came forward in an outpouring of support for Baey. Some called for harsher penalties, while others questioned the fruitfulness of a mob mentality in seeking out revenge. Several others also opined the lessons we should learn from this incident.

But before we dive into the 'what next?' of this, let's recap clearly the process of exactly what happened after Baey first went to the police and campus authorities with her case.

How the authorities handled the case: a summary

From the time Baey made a police report, the police investigation, according to her, took around two months.

It ended with Lim being given a 12-month conditional stern warning, which is usually given to first-time offenders for similar offences.

A conditional stern warning is a warning that has a term attached to it, which means if you commit the same crime during this period (in this case a year), you will be charged not only with your second offence, but with the original crime as well.

In addition, following the police investigations, the NUS Board of Discipline (BOD) issued him the following penalties:

1. Writing a compulsory apology letter

2. Going for mandatory counselling

3. Not being allowed in the dorms anymore, and

4. Given a one-semester suspension.

He didn't receive special treatment

To be clear: the penalties dished out by the NUS BOD for this case were not terribly different from similar cases in past years. Typical punishments for sexual offences from 2015 to 2018 also involved suspensions and counselling.

On April 23, the Singapore Police Force issued a statement explaining the reasons behind its decision, saying they took into account Lim's age, his likelihood of reoffending, and the extent of remorse he showed.

"In this case, the accused was assessed to have a high likelihood of rehabilitation, and was remorseful. There were also additional factors relating to his conduct which were relevant, such as the absence of other obscene materials in any of his devices. A prosecution, with a possible jail sentence, will, likely ruin his entire future, with a permanent criminal record."

NUS also appeared to take a more forgiving approach that prefers rehabilitating (rather than punishing) students.

Its vice-provost (Student Life) Florence Ling highlighted that the university takes a "second strike and you're out" policy with regard to sexual misconduct cases, meaning that one has to be a repeat sexual offender before one is expelled.

What this tells us is that Lim's punishment is part of a wider system of processes and protocols involving the police, the Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC), as well as the school's BOD.

Cool. So what now?

Before Singapore's institutions can develop sustainable solutions around preventing and managing occurrences like these, we first have to acknowledge some important considerations in approaching the issue.

1) The punishments are in accordance with established systems, but does that fact make them okay?

For starters, many have said our system can be improved.

Even though there is precedence regarding the procedure and penalties dished out for similar cases over the years, an increasing amount of people are questioning: Does that make the punishment an appropriate one? Should there be harsher penalties and stricter guidelines that we should use in assessing the seriousness of an offender's actions?

For instance, some feel that the "two strikes" policy that NUS has is inadequate, and more can be done on the university's part — a view that is shared by Education Minister Ong Ye Kung.

During the NUS town hall held on April 25, frustrations also ran high as students were also left disappointed by the way the university addressed the issue and responded to their questions.

If we agree that more can and should be done, this question then surfaces: 

2) Who gets to decide what punishment is sufficiently suited to the crime?

Currently, it appears that the police and AGC decide. The university's BOD then takes its cue from the police, dishing out punishments following police investigations, penalties issued and of course, its own investigation process.

And this is unlikely to change.

3) What does it mean to "hold him accountable"? And again, who should decide?

Beyond the clarion call for a review of existing penalties for sexual harassment offences, the Monica Baey case has also led to a barrage of hate directed at its perpetrator.

One took to Facebook with a candid view of how the internet can be a "scary place", with online villain hunters ready to jump on the blame bandwagon.

Make no mistake — what Lim did is completely reprehensible and unacceptable. But online vitriol directed at him has thus far not yet served to help us make better sense of the issue.

Following the incident, Lim vanished from social media and also resigned from a position he held as a financial adviser. His employer, Great Eastern, also condemned his actions.

It was only on April 25 that he surfaced and spoke publicly on the issue in a Straits Times interview, where he said he is thankful for those who were "willing to let (him) redeem (himself)" and learn from his grievous mistake.

He also touched on the extent of scrutiny and shame he went through following the incident.

Some suggested that the punishment served is adequate, and we should give people like Lim the room to acknowledge and learn from their mistakes.

Others have called for the authorities to "hold him accountable" for his mistake — but what does it mean to hold him accountable? Expulsion? A jail term? For how long?

And now, even if we punish him retroactively for something he's already been punished for, albeit not seriously enough, then do we open the case on every single incident that might have been under the two-strike rule? Especially when that rule has not even been upended yet?

4) How can our institutions respond to such situations better?

Some have highlighted how NUS could have handled Baey's case with more empathy, and had better communication in terms of managing the entire situation.

In her interview with ST, Baey said she felt that there was a lack of transparency regarding the BOD's decision, and added that to her, the university did not meet her needs in helping her feel safe again.

Baey's mother also expressed disappointment at how NUS handled the case, adding that her daughter feels she has been "let down" by the police and NUS.

Executive director of AWARE Corinna Lim explained how she worked with a survivor who felt her case was well-managed because it was investigated by a third-party who asked questions in a professional and empathetic manner, and also clearly explained the next steps to all involved.

5) Is punishment purely the solution to the problem of "boys behaving (horrendously) badly"?

On the university's part, they have promised to relook disciplinary processes with a review committee, and also held a town hall for students to raise their concerns (which you can read about here, here [even the student union spoke out against it] and here) — all telling signs that they know that improvements need to be made.

It also went all the way up to NUS President Tan Eng Chye, who apologised in an email to university alumni:

But to what extent can we rely on fear and punishment to get people to behave appropriately? And what measures, preventive, punitive and/or rehabilitative, will be sufficient?

6) How do we move beyond Monica Baey & Nicholas Lim?

Such questions pertaining to the wider systemic considerations of the issue brings us to our next point — this Monica Baey case should go beyond Baey and Lim as individuals.

It is no longer just about this girl who was filmed in the shower, but about everyone who has encountered some form of sexual misconduct.

It should of course go beyond NUS, and indeed it has — in the past week alone, we've seen two new Peeping Tom cases emerge at Nanyang Technological University:

It is also about the troubling culture that perpetuates such behaviour, and the institutions that prove unhelpful in their treatment of such situations.

7) Why has this happened so many times before? Why, and how, is it still happening?

After Baey bravely came out to share her experience, some responded with a startling lack of empathy, revealing this horrifying culture of dismissiveness among a good proportion of Singaporean society.

There have been an alarming number of reactions slighting her experiences or accusing her of blowing things out of proportion. One has even suggested that the guy didn't assault, rape or kill anyone — he merely "peeped in the shower with a camera".

The existence of this culture sheds light on why so many cases of sexual misconduct go unreported. For instance, according to a 2015 survey by the We Can! Campaign, only one in six respondents said they reported their experiences of sexual assault.

It's not that we do not have institutions to handle such cases. But rather, out of fear, doubt and uncertainty, many victims find it extremely difficult to get help.

We shouldn't ignore the matter of the institutions (which could be the educational institution or the authorities) in place, either, because if they do not exercise sensitivity, provide sufficient support for victims and come down hard enough on their perpetrators, they will also have failed the scores of sexual assault and harassment victims — and worse still, fuel the continued behaviour of their sexual predators.

8) What can we concretely do to prevent this from happening again?

In her Instagram stories, Baey said she received more than 100 direct messages from other girls in NUS who shared similar experiences they themselves went through.

And needless to say, Baey isn't the first NUS student to have had something like this happen to her. She also certainly will not be the last.

It is obvious that these heinous incidents are still very much a problem, so how can we do better in preventing, as far as possible, any form of sexual misconduct from happening?

More can, and should, be done.

During the town hall, Baey and other students who spoke suggested that the university could improve by:

• establishing an office and hotline for victim support,
• educating students on consent and respect,
• enforcing harsher, more lasting sanctions on perpetrators, and
• strengthening the campus security system.

We can't prevent such incidents entirely, but we can have more empathy

And here's another question — since it seems impossible to entirely prevent these things from happening: how do we ensure that people feel safe to share their experiences, and also are empowered to get help?

Every victim will process a traumatic incident differently. Some cope with it better, while others go through a tougher time.

We need to take every incident seriously.

We should not be undermining the feelings and experiences of someone else, but instead, we should be asking: How can we better help the parties involved recover?

This help should not be limited to the victim, it applies to everyone involved who may require assistance — victim, offender, loved ones of the people involved, for instance.

And lastly, where do we go from here?

Ultimately, as we move forward from the incident, there is a need for us to think about how we can better respond to such cases, where we may not be able to act directly to impact their outcome in any way.

What we choose to do shouldn't be focused on taking revenge on the perpetrator for whatever awful deed was committed, or calling for harsher punishments in a relentless fashion.

But rather, we should be asking ourselves how our discussions can be more productive. We should be thinking about how we can strengthen a system which prevents sexual misconduct from happening, and how we can cope with it in an adequate fashion in the unfortunate event something happens.

There will be no easy answers to all the questions that have come up from this entire incident.

But it will be important to first acknowledge these tricky issues before we can work towards a meaningful solution together.

Top photo via Monica Baey's Instagram.