687 abuse cases of children 6 years or younger required statutory intervention in 2025: MSF

Statutory intervention was required for 687 child abuse cases in 2025, according to Minister for Social and Family Development Masagos Zulkifli.

These cases involved children aged up to six years old.

Of these cases, three involved serious injuries, and none involved a child death.

The numbers were provided by Masagos as a written parliamentary reply to Nominated Member of Parliament (NMP) Kenneth Poon, who asked about the statistics of child abuse cases reported in Singapore from 2021 to 2025.

Poon's questions asked for the number of substantiated cases of child abuse or neglect involving children aged three and below, and of those cases, how many resulted in serious injury or death.

He also asked what proportion of these numbers involved concerns previously reported to child protection agencies.

Two child deaths from 2021 to 2024

Masagos added that from 2021 to 2024, there were two child death cases due to abuse or neglect that resulted in prosecution.

The two cases were the abuse and deaths of eight-month-old Trevor Neo on Sep. 2, 2024, and two-month-old Zabelle Peh on Jan. 13, 2023.

Neither child was known to MSF's Protective Service prior to their deaths.