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Gender is an overarching theme that encompasses the eight Millennium Development Goals the world’s nations have committed to achieve by 2015. Yet, country reports, including the Philippines’, have still to fully reflect how gender considerations have figured in crafting, implementing, and monitoring development strategies and programmes that could meet the MDGs. CEDAW Watch Philippines, through one of its members, the Women and Gender Institute of Miriam College,
Going CEDAW in the Philippines
This publication is a collection of stories of how the UNIFEM CEDAW Southeast Asia Programme partners in the Philippines have brought life to CEDAW to advance gender equality in the Philippines. The programme, with support from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), worked with a wide range of actors in government – executive, legislature and judiciary, organized women’s groups, schools and media, to change legislations, to fight discriminatory practices, to open doors for women to access justice and more. The stories demonstrate what it means to “implement CEDAW” and highlight lessons learned and good practices which may be replicated not just in the Philippines but in other similarly situated countries as well.
Benchbook on CEDAW
This publication, produced by the Ateneo Human Rights Center in 2008 and targeted at judicial practitioners (members of the Bench), seeks to contribute to the body of knowledge on how jurisprudence has helped in the realisation of women's human rights in the Philippines, and how it can further do so, using the State's obligations to CEDAW as the standard. While guarantees of equality for women exist in the Constitution, and lawmakers are responsible for enacting legislation that prevents or abolishes discrimination against women, 'the members of the Bench are called on to interpret such laws', therefore making it vital that they are aware of 'their mandate to protect, promote, and fulfill the enjoyment of equal rights between men and women.'
A summary of domestic and some foreign jursiprudence is included as illustrative cases and examples of how courts have upheld and can uphold the rights of women using the CEDAW framework, through the development of case law. Focus is also given to temporary special measures that must be put in place to achieve substantive equality, and to cases dealing in particular with violence against women as a form of discrimination against women. CEDAW NGO Report: The Dynamics of Shadow Reporting and Selected Stories from the Ground
This publication by the Women’s Legal Bureau of the Philippines, who led a coalition of women’s NGOs in coordinating a shadow report in 2006, is an attempt to share 'lessons learned' from the shadow reporting process. The report illustrates the different steps taken within the process, from convening a skills-building workshop on CEDAW for women’s groups working on a range of issues, to collectively gathering and analysing data from all over the country on women's concerns, and finally to presentation of the information to CEDAW Committee members at their Committee Session in January 2007. In all, at least 95 participants from 3 regions – Luzon, Mindanao and Visayas – representing NGOs from all over the Philippines were involved in the shadow reporting process.
CEDAW: Making Women's Rights Real
This brochure is a primer on CEDAW prepared to inform the general public on what CEDAW is and how it matters to women in the Philppines. It illustrates the key concepts and principles of CEDAW in simple terms, and answers frequently asked questions such as 'what is discrimination against women?' and 'how does CEDAW aim to end discrimination?' within the Filipino context. The brochure also describes the Magna Carta of Women, a proposed omnibus law using CEDAW principles, to end discrimination against women in the Philippines .
It was prepared by UNIFEM with support from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and in partnership with PILIPINA, CEDAW Watch Network and the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women.
Training Manual on Gender Sensitivity and CEDAW (for the Judiciary)
This resource, produced by the Ateneo Human Rights Center in collaboration with UNIFEM with support from the Canadian International Development Agency, was developed from a series of trainings on CEDAW and Gender Sensitivity within the Philippine Court System that were conducted from October 2006 to June 2007 in partnership with the Philippine Judicial Academy. The training sessions were targeted at court personnel of the Supreme Court, Court of Appeals, selected Executive Judges and Family Court Judges in Metro Manila and their respective Clerks of Court and Researchers. The training manual is intended as a supporting component of the overall training programme, and as a reference for members of the legal community, in the hopes of promoting more gender-fair and rights-based court decisions. It has been adopted the Philippines Judicial Academy for use in their regular training courses for court personnel.
A Gender Review of Selected Economic Laws in the Philippines
This publication, released in 2006 by the UP Centre for Women's Studies, University of the Philippines, is a legal review of economic laws in the Philippines to assess the extent to which such laws comply with the standards of CEDAW. Laws examined included the Labour Code, laws on microfinance and microenterprise, the Cooperative Code and the Cooperative Development Authority law, and the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL). The study concludes that despite growing participation by women in the labour market and their contributions to growing the Philippine economy, they still lag behind men in terms of access to economic opportunities. Structural and cultural barriers continue to impede women's effective access and control of capital, markets, training, information, technology and technical assistance, and just wages and benefits.
This publication was prepared with the support of UNIFEMʼs CEDAW Southeast Asia programme funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).
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