WITH a few days before the
International Working Women’s Day (March 8), the Center for Women’s Resources
(CWR) bared the most recent data on violence against women and children – at
least one woman or child is abused every 10 minutes in the country.
It’s worrisome to say the least.
The CWR unveiled, through its Ulat Lila 2020, the bi-annual report on the situation of Filipino women, which was publicly presented at the University of the Philippines, Diliman just this Monday.
Recent data of the Philippine National Police – Women and Children Protection Center (PNP-WCPC) on nationwide violence against women and children shows that there are about 9,935 reported cases of violence against women and children from April to June 2019. From these cases, 6,315 women and 6,054 children are reported as victims. This translates to one woman or one child experiences violence every 10 minutes.
It is saddening that while the Philippines is one of the countries that has the most number of laws which supposedly address violence against women, many women and girls are still abused every day. The intensifying socioeconomic and political crisis, coupled with a regressive feudal patriarchal mind-set of leaders in the country, increase the vulnerability of women to gender-based abuses.
But the data released by the PNP, while already alarming, does not paint the complete picture of VAW in the country. Only six percent of women victims sought help from the authorities, according to 2017 National Health and Demographic Survey. Further, CWR also notices that the authorities refrain from releasing VAW-related data including rape cases after the controversy about state-perpetrated violence in 2018. Observably, a quick visit to the websites of national and regional offices of PNP reveals that only a few regional offices have a comprehensive annual report on VAW and rape statistics.
As the International Day of Working Women nears, we need to join forces – both women and men – to show resistance to the culture of misogyny and impunity.
