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Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Oledan: Internal war
By Radzini Oledan
Slice of Life
EVERY second, one woman is beaten black and blue by her own intimate partner, one girl is most likely to be assaulted by her own relative, and another would be recruited for so-called better opportunities outside.
Still, these women would rather suffer in silence rather than mar the image of their happy family; one girl would probably have to keep silent to preserve the credibility of their family and another would struggle with the daily humiliation until she gives up and totally lose respect for herself.
The McCann-Erickson National Women's Study states "the percentage of men who admitted to beating up their wives regularly is higher than the number of women who admit to having been victims."
Another study states that one in every five women in the world are subject to some form of domestic violence. Specifically, the World Health Organization's (WHO) report estimated that in the Philippines, about six out of 10 (or three out of five) women are battered.
The Department of Social Welfare and Development also observed an increase in the cases of incest and trafficking for sexual purposes. The victims of the modern form of slavery are primarily innocent women with dreams of jobs, salaries, and better lives.
These are some forms of violence against women, a human rights violation with an attending cost not only to the individual but also to the government and the community.
VAW is defined by the Philippine Plan for Gender-Responsive Development as "all forms of violence inflicted on women on account of their gender." In its broadest sense, VAW includes "any violation of a woman's personhood, mental and physical integrity or freedom of movement." It also involves domestic violence, institutional violence, occupational discrimination, violence in media, and sexual abuse.
True there are women who get enough courage to defy odds and barriers to stand and speak up on their situation. Still, there are many who still opt to suffer in silence for fear of further humiliation.
Violence against women and girls is also a major public health problem. By military standards, the numbers of wounded and injured citizens would indicate an internal war -- a war against our own women and girl children.
Consider the expenditures of the government on activities related to the treatment, prevention and monitoring of VAW cases, the direct expenditures of the individual victim/survivor for medical services, transportation and subsistence allowances, expenditures of the individual for pursuing legal action against the aggressor such s docket and lawyers' fees, the loss of income and opportunities due to absence from work, productivity loss to the market due to the absence from work and the attendant social costs such as breakdown of family and communal relationships, and social unrest.
Government's expenditure on VAW includes the mandatory five per cent budget for prevention and services which include the conduct of symposia on VAW and elimination of sexual harassment, support to the women's desk officer in investigating, assessing and reporting domestic violence, formulation of sexual harassment rules, and establishment women's health desk.
We have yet to fully translate how the treatment of VAW impact on the public health system or the cost of litigating VAW related cases on the part of the Department of Health and how much is allotted to the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) for the monitoring and prevention of VAW cases.
Then we realize that this internal war against women and girl children results not only to broken limbs but shatters the collective spirit of the people. There
are unquantifiable costs.
For Bisaya stories from Davao. Click here. (March 14, 2006 issue)
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