PHL, int'l community renew calls to stop violence against women

March 8, 2013 5:42pm


The international community, including the Philippines, once more renewed its call to stop violence against women (VAW) as the world celebrated International Women’s Day on March 8, Friday.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, in a message commemorating the event, urged the people outraged by the recent cases of abuse on women to "convert rage into action."

"We declare that we will prosecute crimes against women – and never allow women to be subjected to punishments for the abuses they have suffered," Ban said.

"We renew our pledge to combat this global health menace wherever it may lurk – in homes and businesses, in war zones and placid countries, and in the minds of people who allow violence to continue," he added.

Ban said the UN is advancing its campaign to end VAW based on the "simple but powerful premise that all women and girls have a fundamental right to live free of violence."

PHL as a women-friendly nation


The Philippine Commission on Women (PCW), in a statement, said it shares the UN's call for ending violence against women and that the country "is now in a better stance" to respond to VAW cases.

The PCW noted that 30,424 barangays in the country out of 40,027 each have Violence Against Women help desks. It also raised the findings of last year's Gender Gap Report by the World Economic Forum, where the Philippines was cited as one of the better places for women.

In that report, the Philippines was the top country in Asia and the eighth in the world in terms of bridging the gender or inequality gap between men and women.

According to the PCW, government data supports the result of the report. It said women occupy 46 percent of third level government posts, citing information from the Career Executive Service Board in 2012.

Some presidential women appointees also hold top strategic and non-traditional government positions, said the PCW, citing the posts of Chief Justice (Ma. Lourdes Sereno), Secretary of Justice (Leila de Lima), and Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (Ging Deles).

The commission also cited data from the National Statistics Office in 2012 that said the participation rate of women in the labor force is at 49.7 percent.

The PCW also said the country has adopted the theme "Kababaihan: Gabay sa Pagtahak sa Tuwid na Daan." The slogan is aimed at giving Filipinas respect and recognition in their contributions to the government's anti-corruption drive.

“Rape of the motherland”


Meanwhile, progressive womens' rights group Gabriela slammed the administration of President Benigno Aquino III and the United States for what the group perceived as the "rape of the motherland" brought about by the government's "unqualified surrender to US policy dictates."

“We hold the US-Aquino regime responsible for the wretched situation of Filipino women, for the plunder and destruction of our economy and the massive attack on women’s economic and political rights and welfare," said Gabriela Secretary General Joms Salvador in a statement posted on the group's website.

"We deplore the poverty and the violence that we are being subjected to,” she also said.

The group's various chapters all over the country are scheduled to conduct protests today to call for an end to the exploitation against women and other Filipinos.

“Today, International Women’s Day, we demonstrate our outrage as well as our commitment to the struggle against the heightening oppression and exploitation women experience as a result of US imperialist domination and the Philippine government’s subservience to its imperialist masters,” Salvador said.

Celebrating women's achievements


The United Kingdom Embassy in the Philippines released a statement from the country’s Foreign Secretary William Hague, who said UK will intensify its efforts to stop VAW, especially against women in conflict areas.

“International Women’s Day is a chance to celebrate women’s achievements, but also to highlight where more work needs to be done," he said.

“Sexual violence as a weapon of war is not just a crime against women. But the majority of attacks are against women and girls, with hundreds of thousands suffering appalling sexual crimes in conflict zones.  It is a sad truth that too often the perpetrators go unpunished," Hague also said.

A deployment team will be sent to the Syrian borders, Mali, Libya, Bosnia-Herzegovina, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo to provide medical assistance and other forms of support to survivors of sexual violence.

Hague's Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative will also pursue perpetrators of VAW and push for greater international action for the initiative to help end the crimes and to support survivors, the statement said.

Indigenous women


A statement sent by the Forest Peoples Programme said indigenous women from the Asia-Pacific region have informed the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) about experiencing violence.

“Indigenous women have submitted to the Commission a range of documents detailing how indigenous women experience violence against themselves and their peoples,” the statement said.

The group said the documents “also reiterate the fact that indigenous women suffer disproportionately from a multi-fold of discrimination and oppression based on their ethnicity, race, location and economic status together with their sex.”

The statement said the women have presented recommendations to the CSW on how to address their current problems, one of the major ones is by providing for their “effective participation” in helping the governance of their communities and nations.

The Australian Embassy in the Philippines, meanwhile, released a statement from Minister for Foreign Affairs Bob Carr, who said women all over the world do not want charity but rather, equality.

He expressed Australia's call along with other nations to stop violence against women and girls "in all its forms and wherever it occurs."

"In Papua New Guinea, in Egypt, in Timor-Leste, in Myanmar, in remote villages and in cities, in all the places I’ve visited, the language may be different, but the message is unchanged: women rightly want the full realisation of their human rights," he said.

"They don’t want charity.  Rather, they want equal access to education, employment, and opportunity," Carr continued.

Women, he said, do not want to be perceived as victims. Women want to participate and live lives of dignity.

"There is no more important building block for the empowerment of women and girls than the elimination of violence," Carr said. — Gian Geronimo/KBK, GMA News