Gerard Fernandez

Gerard Fernandez (born 1938) is a Roman Catholic religious sister, best known for her work as a death row counsellor in Singapore.

In over 40 years' career, Fernandez worked with 18 inmates on death row, some of the most notable of whom were Catherine Tan Mui Choo, and Hoe Kah Hong, the women accomplices of Adrian Lim in the murders of two children, and Filipina double murderer Flor Contemplacion.

Career Fernandez said that at the age of six her father had her recite a verse "And I commit you to Sing Sing Prison, there to be hanged, drawn and quartered" as an enunciation drill. Shocked, she recited a prayer instead. At the age of 18, she joined the Good Shepherd Sisters, a Roman Catholic order of nuns, at their convent in Marymount.

Media In 2018, the short film Sister by Chai Yee Wei showed Sister Gerard and her counselling of Catherine Tan Mui Choo and Hoe Kah Hong before their deaths.

In May 2019, Gerard gave a two-hour oral history interview to the Singapore Academy of Law, where she talked about her own life and the various condemned inmates she counselled while they were on death row in Changi Prison. In the recordings, she also described the final moments of prisoners such as Flor Contemplacion and Van Tuong Nguyen as she walked with them to the gallows on the morning of their executions.

Awards She is the first Singaporean woman to be included in the BBC's 2019 list of 100 Women, the most inspiring women across the globe.