Home / CEDAW in Southeast Asia / Philippines / State Reporting

CEDAW Committee Concluding Observations

The key areas of concern raised by the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women at their 36th Session in August 2006 included the following:

• Status of the Convention in the national legal system, and absence of a definition of discrimination in national legislation.
• Lack of progress in completing necessary revisions of discriminatory provisions in national legislation, and in enacting a comprehensive legal framework pertaining to gender equality – including pending bills aimed at amending the Family Code, Civil Code and Penal Code, among others.
• Inadequate institutional authority, capacity and resources of the national women’s machinery to effectively promote implementation of the Convention and support gender mainstreaming.
• Prevalence of violence against women – concerns were also raised about the Anti-Rape Law of 1997, which although it penalizes marital rape, also allows for ‘the wife, as the offended party, to forgive the crime’, thus extinguishing the criminal dimension of the action and consequent severity of the penalty.
• Persistence of patriarchal attitudes and deep-rooted stereotypes regarding the roles and responsibilities of women and men in the family and society.
• Persistence of trafficking in women and girls, exploitation of prostitution, and low rates of prosecution and conviction of traffickers and those exploiting prostitution of women.
• Continued feminization of migration, including vulnerabilities of women to various forms of trafficking, exploitation and violence.
• Low level of participation of women in elected and public bodies, particularly among indigenous and Muslim women.
• Possible adverse effects of trade liberalization on the living and working conditions of women, especially in the rural areas – including the high unemployment rate among women, gender wage gaps, and overrepresentation of women in the informal sector.
• Inadequate recognition and protection of the reproductive health and rights of women – including the high maternal mortality rates, high fertility rates, inadequate family planning services, low rates of contraceptive use and difficulty of obtaining contraceptives, high teenage pregnancy rates, and lack of sex education, particularly in the rural areas.
• Precarious situation of rural and indigenous women, and Muslim women in the autonomous region of Muslim Mindanao, who lack access to health services, education, clean water and sanitation services, credit facilities, and justice in cases of violence, among other challenges.
• Lack of a law on divorce, making it impossible for women to obtain legal divorce.
  

Top