Three years after the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, the Filipino women's plight has remained almost the same.
In a monitoring report submitted to the Senate, the Philippine NGO Beijing Score Board (PBSB), the NGO formation that mobilized the Philippine NGO participation in the Beijing Conference, expressed deep concern over the government's seeming inability to respond to the increasing adverse impact of globalization and the financial crisis on Filipino women as well as to effectively implement the Beijing Platform for Action.
The report attributed the roots of the current economic crisis to "the inability of national governments to exercise leadership that is responsive to people's needs and interests." Furthermore, it deplored the "dominant role that multilateral financial institutions have had in shaping economic and social policies of Asian countries and the entire globalization process which has aggressively pushed for "free market" economic policies and practices worldwide in the service of global capital and the economic elite." Consequently, the Asian economic crisis has in turn "affected the full fabric of society with staggering effects - women and children," the statement added.
Specifically, the PBSB identified the following indicators which depict he current situation of women:
- Increasing unemployment and poor working conditions;
- Continuing displacement in agriculture and increasing decline in incomes of rural women;
- Increasing feminization of migration and deployment of Filipino women migrants;
- Unabated prostitution and trafficking in women (related to rural poverty and unemployment, as well as migration of vulnerable and unprotected women workers);
- Substantial curtailment of investments in health, education and other social needs and services;
- Limited participation of women in politics and public policy;
- Poor access and utilization of environmental resources; and
- Worsening of the conditions of the girl child.
PBSB challenged the national government to redirect and "re-examine its macroeconomic policies and development models" to ensure the deliver of basic social services as well as "increase safety nets while building up national and local capacity to undertake poverty alleviation and the provision of basic services." It called for appropriate and sustainable reintegration programs instead of further deregulating the export of labor. It also recommended the provision of a comprehensive social security package for workers and their families, especially women workers who survived abuse and violence abroad.
Furthermore, it put to task the Estrada administration to really redeem its promise to the poor by putting their interests above those of the IMF and other creditor institutions and multinational enterprises by prioritizing food security, implementing structural reforms and providing employment and other minimum basic needs. The bigger challenge lies on the Philippine government's sincere "adherence to the Beijing Platform of Action which is anchored on gender equity and women's economic empowerment," but can not be achieved if the country continues to thrive under "conditions of unfettered globalization," the report concluded.