By ewenboey | SingaporeScene – Fri, Jul 15, 2011
"I will kill you when I hunt you down" and "I will rape you
ladies wen I get hold of you" are some of the threats that have
been made on the woman behind the Geylang Checker website.
The woman, who only wants to be known as Angie, has been running
the "whistle-blowing" website since last July to monitor "cheating
men in Geylang".
However, the nasty e-mail messages have not deterred Angie.
In an e-mail interview with my paper, she revealed that
she has assembled a team of more than 50 volunteers, or "checkers"
as she calls them, to conduct "hourly patrols of Geylang streets"
every day.
These volunteers are mostly female.
They snap photographs of boyfriends, husbands, male relatives
and colleagues who solicit the services of prostitutes.
The checkers receive assignments or tip-offs from women who want
to find out if their men have been to the red-light district.
Angie, who is in her early 30s and works for "one of the big
five auditing firms" here, confessed to being fearful of her life
and the lives of her volunteers.
"Safety is a concern, but helping Singaporean women takes a
higher priority," said the woman whose family is unaware of her
activities.
Her motivation to set up the site
She started the website to help other women avoid the
experiences she had been through.
In May last year, she caught her boyfriend stepping out of a
brothel in Geylang and saw him kiss a woman on his way out.
"I didn't believe it when my friend told me, so I took a cab
down and waited outside," recalled Angie, who cut ties with him
immediately.
"We had been together for six years. I deleted his contact
numbers and warned him not to look for me any more," she said.
To date, there have been 43 postings on the website, featuring
photographs of men and women and recruitment ads for more
volunteers.
She said that their team has so far received 30 requests and has
exposed 15 cases of cheating.
The operations were initially conducted by Angie alone, but she
managed to rope in two friends whose boyfriends had also cheated on
them to take photos surreptitiously in Geylang.
She admitted to not having a long-term plan initially as
well.
How they check up on the men
The initial trio of volunteers were able to take photos without
any suspicion as they were "dressed formally" and were thought to
be tourists.
Armed with cameras that "are not well-furnished, the volunteers
are also not trained professionally or skilled in martial arts, but
they have "guts and strategy".
The team also grew bigger when people found out about it through
word of mouth and through their call to arms on the site.
The volunteers include lawyers, doctors, junior-college and
university students, office workers and housewives.
Men have also stepped forward. Citing them as "our secret
weapon", Angie revealed that one of them works in the army and
helps train the volunteers with "expertise in guerilla
warfare".
Taught by the army expert, the volunteers work with two teams --
one as a decoy while the other snaps photos.
Angie told the paper, "We have also planned our escape route. We
know which hotels we can hide in if we're being chased."
Volunteers in some close shaves
However, she admitted that there have been some close shaves.
There was an incident, she recalled, when a female volunteer was
caught taking pictures and chased by two men.
They cornered her and smashed her camera on the ground. Luckily
for her, the police arrived and the men fled before they could
"make advances on her".
Security experts the same paper spoke to commended the
intentions of the volunteers, but warned that the best results may
not be achieved.
James Loh, 39, owner of SG Investigators, said that cheating
spouses may not stop his errant ways even after being
confronted.
He added that the photos taken by the volunteers may even
"jeopardise the collection of evidence that can be used by the
court". Such evidence is required for settling divorce claims.
The investigator of more than eight years said that only the
evidence collected by professional and licenced sources can be
used.
Angie, however, is not deterred.
She wants the website to become a "whistle-blower", and her goal
is to create a site that is "a complete deterrent to cheating among
Singaporean men".
The single, who has not dated anyone since her break-up last
year, is still keen to pursue a relationship.
"Yes, trust (in men) has been lost, but I want to see how my
future partner can help me regain this trust so that Geylang
Checker may be passed on to the next hurting woman."
