Report - Social Watch Philippines

plicating overpopulation and poor women, which can
prove adverse to the realization of to women’s control
over their bodies and is hence material to Goal 3 of
women’s empowerment. Some population control policies
especially during times of political turmoil have led
to harmful consequences for women and girls. Points
raised by Jonathan Porritt, UK’s chief environmental
adviser, exemplifi es how dangerous this terrain can be.
He cited how China’s prevention of 400 million births
through a one-child policy implemented since 1979
also saved it some 1.4 billion tonnes in CO 2 emissions—
“the biggest CO 2 abatement since Kyoto came
into force.” Phil Ward comments that Porritt “fails to
mention that up to 2002 Chinese women were given no
choice about contraceptive method, with the result that
37 percent of married women have been sterilized.” 40
Though the example of China is extreme, it serves as
a cautionary tale.
Conclusions: enabling the realization of Goal 3
The Philippines’ obligations to the realization of
many international development and human rights
goals, as concomitant to its ratifi cation and adoption
of the instruments in which these are enshrined, have
been used many times and proven useful in pushing for
the promotion of women’s rights and in seeking state
accountability for the full realization of the same. Since
the Philippines became state party to the CEDAW,
there have been many gains won especially in the fi eld
of legislative advocacy and policy reform. These international
commitments continue to be used as platforms
for calling attention to enduring gender inequalities and
human rights violations against women. The adoption
of the eight measurable, time-bound goals in 2001
and their mainstreaming in the Philippine Medium
Term Development Plans add to the gains achieved
thus far towards moving in the direction of improving
women’s lives.
The increased participation of women in education
and comparatively greater enjoyment of their right to
work are important steps forward in the framework of
the MDGs. Purposively aligning the MTPDP with the
MDGs and monitoring compliance have also generated
measures towards progressively seeking women’s
empowerment. These include, as reported by government,
shaping educational content to bring the gender
68 SOCIAL WATCH PHILIPPINES
differentials and gender-based discriminations to the
fore by highlighting the need for and importance of
shared roles in care labor and household management,
equitable spaces in decision-making and access to and
ownership of resources, gender parity and affi rmative
actions for enhancing women’s political participation,
and ending VAW. Education is, after all, a critical part
of the meso-level of institutions, laws and policies where
gender biases disadvantageous to women are usually
legitimated and institutionalized. A way of monitoring
the impact of these interventions over time would yield
invaluable information on government’s compliance
to both its CEDAW and MDG commitments to progressively
address norms and practices discriminatory
to women.
The recognition of inadequacies is VAW is recognized
as “…a major obstacle to law implementation,
sound programming and tracking for accountability.”
However, as the preceding sections indicate, gains
in education, waged work and public life have yet to
translate into meeting other targets set towards empowering
women. Gender gaps and inequalities endure,
eroding the gains achieved and impeding women’s
moves towards realizing truly empowering goals of
socio-economic and political autonomy. Data indicate
that biases operating to the disadvantage of women
remain pervasive at the macro level, at the meso level
of institutions, laws and policies and at the micro level
of families and households. Bridging the gaps towards
women’s empowerment will need interventions that are
more comprehensive and substantive than ensuring
gender parity and formal equality in school, in work
and in avenues of political participation.
The greater majority especially among the
economically disadvantaged remain at the fringes of
political decision making and are compelled by longstanding
socio-economic forms of discrimination at
home to respond to high demand for lowly paid and
dangerous work abroad. Women are disproportionately
represented in unpaid work, which means that the price
of much of the work they do they is priced zero; with
income alone and economic growth as barometers, large
numbers will not be accounted for.
Women are not only outnumbered by men in
the labor force, but receive comparatively lower wages
40 Ward, Phil. “Population Control and Climate Change, Part One: Too Many People?” March 2, 2008. http://climateandcapitalism.
com/?p=348.