Topic: Violence Against Women
Country: Philippines
Delegate Name: Jimmy Braun
School: Forest Hills Eastern High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Philippines position papers GLIMUN 2018 committees
According to a 2013 global review of available data, 35 percent of women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence. This is a tragedy. Tragedy not just for the Philippines or the south asian community, but a tragedy for the world. The effects of violence go beyond STD’s and physical violence, but to the emotional trauma this places on its victims. Violence of this nature is built into many societies across the world, where tradition forces women into situations where violence in present. Sex trafficking continues to plague the world, despite the efforts of this committee, placing the lives of hundreds of thousands of women in danger.
The Philippines respects the UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women’s (1993) definition of violence against women (VAW) as, “any act of gender‑based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public and private life. Gender-based violence is any violence inflicted on women because of their sex.” In the Philippines, violence against women remains one of the most pervasive social problems of our country. In 2008, a study conducted by the National Statistics Office found that in 5 women in the Philippines experienced physical violence after age 15. Another study, conducted by the World Economic Forum, showed that in the Philippines, women violence in sexual related cases rate of 21.6% according to a 2010 study by the journal of family violence. Despite our extensive efforts to stop this, it persists. The Philippines has passed extensive laws which impose harsh punishment on VAW, such as the Republic Act of 9262, and the Anti-Violence Against Women Act of 2004, which are both standards for international VAW laws.
For the past 50 years, the Philippines has been a benchmark for women's rights. In the past 10 years, the Philippines has been a member of the World Economic Forum’s top 10 global gender gap countries. By the WEF, the Philippines is given a value of 18 on the topic of prevalence on gender violence in a lifetime, 15 points below the worldwide average. As the Philippines has intense laws and penalties on violent acts, we call upon our cohorts in the United Nations to do the same, and to strive to lower violence against women. To achieve these goals, we back the UN Women’s efforts to set up offices across the world, as part of and enforcing the Magna Carta of Women, especially in countries with high sex trafficking rates. Those nations, such as Pakistan, India, China and Thailand, should be targeted with outreach programs and funding for politicians who fight this issue. The success of this international effort is contingent upon the cooperation of every country present. Without every country fully supporting the elimination of this issue, the international community cannot succeed.
