SINGAPORE: A Roman Catholic nun has become the first Singaporean to make the BBC’s annual list of 100 influential women.
Sister Gerard Fernandez (pic), 81, worked with the prisons for over 40 years as a death row counsellor, until she stopped in 2017. In that time, she “walked with” 18 inmates on death row, up to when they were executed.
Among the inmates she has worked with were Catherine Tan Mui Choo and Hoe Kah Hong, the women who helped temple medium Adrian Lim kill two children in the Toa Payoh ritual murder case in 1981.
The BBC’s annual list features girls and women aged 15 to 98 from more than 50 countries. This year’s theme for the 100 Women list is “The Female Future”, which asks what the future would look like if it was driven by women.
Besides Sister Gerard, this year’s list includes Swedish teenage climate change activist Greta Thunberg, who criticised world leaders in a speech at the United Nations Climate Action Summit in September, and Malaysian transgender rights activist Nisha Ayub, who was sent to a male prison at the age of 21.
BBC said on its website that many on the list are driving change on behalf of women everywhere.
“They give us their vision of what life could look like in 2030,” it added.
Sister Gerard said yesterday that the news of her making it into the BBC list came as a surprise.
“I don’t work for prizes and awards. I didn’t think I’d get one at 81.”
“There are many women who live their lives for other people every day, and I admire those who work for others. I’m happy to be able to spread care and compassion to others.”
She co-founded the Roman Catholic Prison Ministry in 1977 and has explained that she counsels death row prisoners because “the condemned need hope”.
“We may condemn them, but God condemns no one who comes to him,” Sister Gerard said in a report in January.
Journalist Heather Chen, 32, who works at BBC News, nominated Sister Fernandez for the list, which has been running since 2013.
Having attended a Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus school, she heard of the nun and the Toa Payoh murder case growing up.
Chen said: “Her story was exceptionally strong because of how she would exhaust herself mentally for people on death row to help them accept their fates.”
Last year, Sister Gerard was featured in local film-maker Chai Yee Wei’s Sister. The film looked at Lim’s accomplices Tan and Hoe who were hanged in 1988. Sister Gerard spoke with them weekly for seven years, up to the moment they walked to the gallows. — The Straits Times/ANN
