Warmest greetings from Geneva, Switzerland!
I have been here since the last week of February as the head of delegation of the Philippine UPR Watch, a network of human rights and faith-based organizations engaging in the Universal Periodic Review process of the UN Human Rights Council, as we lobby in preparation for the UPR of the Philippines this coming May to June 2012. I spent March 8, International Women's Day, with women human rights defenders from all over the world as the Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition launched the Global Report on WHRDs in Geneva, simultaneous with the launch in New York, US and in the Philippines. In a week, our delegation will be back in the Philippines.
May I share with you a video-tribute to Filipina human rights defenders and a paper where I culled excerpts of my panel presentation during the said launch. Please see attached copy of the paper and click through this link for the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96ucpEZajZ4&feature=youtu.be.
Likewise, we pay tribute to you as a sister and a fellow traveler in this journey towards a society where genuine equality, freedom and respect exist. Happy international women's day!
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The Struggle for Justice and Rights for
Women Human Rights Defenders in the Philippines
Paper Prepared by Cristina Palabay
Side Event at the 19th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council
By the International Service for Human Rights and the Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition
Today, March 8 2012 - International Women’s Day, we pay tribute to the women human rights defenders all over the world as we commemorate a “herstoric” event in herstory – the struggle for bread and roses, the struggle for rights and freedoms. As a young feminist, I take inspiration from this most relevant call for all of humanity, especially for all women: A woman’s place is in the struggle.
And why will we not struggle?
If we are in the place of Connie Empeno, a mother whose daughter was abducted, tortured, raped and is still missing after six years, won’t we march for justice over the rights violations against a daughter, along with other daughters, sisters and mothers who were similarly violated? This had been the common practice in the Philippines under former woman President Gloria Arroyo whose counter-insurgency blueprint has ravaged rights and lives, with 206 victims of enforced disappearances, 31 of which are women. Connie Empeno’s child, Karen, who is a young activist and sociology student, was abducted in 2006 by Maj. Gen. Jovito “The Butcher” Palparan and his cohorts in the military while she and Sherlyn Cadapan, a student leader and triathlete, were conducting research on the situation of farmers. Since then, they have not been surfaced. Their parents filed cases against the perpetrators resulting to the issuance of warrants of arrest but Palparan remains at-large.
If we are in the place of Evan Hernandez, a mother whose daughter Beng – a human rights worker and journalist – was shot summarily while conducting a fact-finding mission in a militarized indigenous people’s community, won’t you struggle for justice? Beng begged for her life and asked the military who shot her to please take pity, but impunity is that brazen and perpetrators roam freely everyday in the Philippines, from the highest government offices to the courts to the military and police, that they just didn’t care. Beng’s case was brought before the UN Human Rights Committee, where it was investigated that the state security forces are responsible for her killing. But lo and behold, during the same time that the ruling came out, the cases against the perpetrators were dismissed. Beng is among the 1,206 victims of extrajudicial killings (EJKs) under the nine-year rule of Arroyo, 153 of them women.
Such climate of impunity prevails to this day, under the one and a half years under Phil. Pres. Benigno Aquino III, with 67 cases of EJKs, four of the victims are women, three of them are WHRDs and one is a seven-year old child Sunshine Jabinez. Oplan Bayanihan, the current counter-insurgency policy, has legitimized the militarization of communities resulting to forced evacuations, threats, harassment, torture, and indiscriminate firing, the rape and sexual abuse among the civilian population, most of them women and children.
While economic and socio-cultural rights are being violated every day, Phil. state security forces continue to quell and silence those who dare lead the defense and struggle for rights of the women and the people. Comprehensive health care, including reproductive healthcare, is being denied by the government; rural women and their families are being dispossessed of lands they have tilled for many decades; women workers choose between being laid off from work or they can lay down and suffer sexual abuse and rape of their employers to keep their jobs; young women are deprived of their right to education because of the increasingly prohibitive and privileged costs of education. All of these are in the context of the immense impacts of the global financial crisis instigated by imperialist greed bringing forth these attacks especially against the poor and marginalized women of the Philippines and of the world.
And so, yes, why will we not struggle.
The Global Report of the Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition provides the whole picture of violations. I believe that the intent of this document is not only to illustrate the sordid picture of the violations being suffered by WHRDs, but more importantly, it is intended to move us into action, including actions we can undertake while we engage in the UN Human Rights Council. The UNHRC is an important venue for advocacy and intervention for WHRDs, and a platform for complaints, communications and networking, where solidarity can be established and enhanced for the defense and protection of WHRDs.
Tanggol Bayi-Karapatan (Defend Women-Karapatan) Philippines and the Asia Pacific Forum on Women Law and Development, as member of the WHRD-IC, enjoins every sister and brother, every warrior in the lesbian, gay, transgender and bisexual movement, to help us pressure the Philippine government to exert more efforts in arresting and prosecuting Palparan and other human rights violators, and ultimately end the climate of impunity by scrapping Oplan Bayanihan and genuinely realizing the basic human rights of the women and Filipino people.
I enjoin every sister, every brother, every warrior in the LGBT movement, amid the cold streets of Geneva, Switzerland, to keep the fire of struggle burning as we all contend against state militarism, globalization, fundamentalism, sexism and patriarchy.
Thank you very much.
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