Cases of violence vs. women drop

Reported cases of abused women have decreased for the past three years.

According to the presentation of Dr. Rhodora Bucoy, from the University of the Philippines Gender and Development, data from Department of Social Welfare and Development showed that the number of cases of Violence against Women and Children dropped more than 50 percent in 2007.

Last year, there were 1,261 VAWC cases recorded in Central Visayas, over 50 percent less than the 3,087 cases recorded in 2005.

In the year 2006, VAWC cases totaled to 2,678, most of them cases involving child victims.

In 2007, there were only 478 cases involving child offenders; 222 cases with child victims; 436 women victims and 125 women offenders.

In the records of VAWC, seven out of 10 victims and survivors of rape were raped by men known to them and eight of them were reported to have reproductive tract infections and sleep disorders.

Three out of 10, Bucoy said, were forced into prostitution.

Physical injuries or wife battery is the most common type of reported VAW case to the Philippine National Police and three out of ten perpetrators are husbands of the victims.

“National data show that an estimated nine percent of Filipino women 18 above have experienced gender-based violence from their partners,” Bucoy said.

Among children, rape is the most prevalent type of reported case, which, include both incest and attempted. After cases on rape, violence in the form of physical abuse or maltreatment and then acts of lasciviousness followed.

In the international scene, migration related violence against women is becoming a serious problem. Filipino domestic helpers suffer sexual and physical abuse in the Middle East and in other countries.

She also said there is still a need to come up with concrete national data on VAWC.

The presentation was conducted in the recently-held culmination of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

CEDAW is considered as the International Bill of Rights for Women which went into effect September 1981 and ratified by 184 countries in 2007. — Ferliza C. Contratista/BRP