A few days before the International Working Women’s Day, the Center for Women’s Resources (CWR) sounded the alarm as records showed that at least one woman or child is abused every 10 minutes in the country.
The CWR reported, through its Ulat Lila 2020, the bi-annual report on the situation of Filipino women, that violence against women is among the relevant issues in Philippine society today.
Recent data of the Philippine National Police – Women and Children Protection Center (PNP-WCPC) on nationwide violence against women and children showed 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 were reported as victims translating this to one woman or one child experiencing 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,” said CWR executive director Jojo Guan.
“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,” she added.
Guan noted that the data released by the PNP, while already alarming, “does not paint the complete picture of VAW (violence against women) in the country’’.
She cited that only six percent of women victims sought help from the authorities, according to 2017 National Health and Demographic Survey.
CWR also claimed that the authorities have refrained 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,’’ CWR said in a statement.
Guan added “all forms of violence against women remain rampant and pervasive as the government and the law enforcement authorities do not only turn a blind eye to it, but worse, they perpetuate it”.
Based on the most recent monitoring of CWR, at least 63 police officers have been involved in cases of violence against women including rape from July 2016 until December 2019.
In 2018, the CWR said the PNP-Internal Affairs Service (PNP-IAS) confirmed the prevalence of rape involving police officials, saying that 43 police officers have been charged administratively for rape complaints since 2015.
“As the International Day of Working Women nears on March 8, we need to join forces – both women and men – to show resistance to the culture of misogyny and impunity that is rampant under the Duterte administration,” Guan concluded.
