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Reproductive Rights Activists Demand Government Response to the CEDAW Committee and Consent to the Visit of CEDAW Experts

Posted on October 19th By CEDAW

October 13, 2009, Manila — When Sylvia Pabustan went to a Manila City health clinic seeking family planning services, she was told that the clinic could not give her family planning supplies because “If someone from Manila City Hall found out, [the clinic] would be reprimanded.” When Ms. Pabustan, whose name has been changed for confidentiality, went to a private clinic, she was told the same thing. Another woman, Alia Banyana, whose name has also been changed, reported that when she went to Ospital ng Maynila, she was told that they would not provide tubal ligation because they are “Pro-Life.” Ms. Pabustan and Ms. Banyanas’ stories were only a few of the many collected by EnGendeRights, WomenLEAD, and KAKAMMPI and SAMAKANA-Gabriela during community visits in Manila in 2008 and 2009.

Why are women such as Ms.. Pabustan and Ms. Banyana being denied access to basic reproductive health services? According to Attorney Clara Rita Padilla, Executive Director of EnGendeRights, Inc., the blame falls on Mayor Atienza’s EO 003 Series of 2000 (“EO”). The EO promotes the use of natural family planning (NFP) and “discourag[es] the use of artificial methods of contraception, like condoms, pills, intrauterine devices, surgical sterilization.”

The EO has resulted in a ban on modern contraceptives from all the Manila-run public health facilities and a denial of information or referral on the full range of contraceptive methods.

According to Atty. Padilla, this policy of promoting NFP alone has cost many poor women in Manila significantly, “As a consequence, some of them ended up having as many as eight more children than they actually desired. While the national average would only show that women usually have one child more than they desired, the disparity between desired and actual number of children is greater for poor women.” In addition, according to Atty. Padilla, poor women are further impacted by EO 003 because they “do not have the money to pay for their own contraceptive supplies and counseling from private doctors,” unlike wealthier women in Manila.

The EO has had a devastating effect on the lives of many poor women living in Manila. Without access to contraceptives, these women continue to get pregnant and give birth while facing grave threats to their health and ability to subsist. Furthermore, poor families suffer substantial strain when they have more children than they can afford. Some families have five children or more while making only a very small amount of income.[x] Providing access to modern contraceptives prevents unwanted pregnancies, prevents the need for abortion and reduces maternal mortality and morbidity.

The practice of denying women access to modern family planning in Manila, in addition to harming women such as Ms. Pabustan and Ms. Banyana, is against international law and the Philippines’ international treaty obligations, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).[xi]

The Philippine-based Task Force CEDAW Inquiry led by EnGendeRights and WomenLead,[xii] the Center for Reproductive Rights[xiii] and International Women’s Rights Action Watch, Asia-Pacific (IWRAW-AP),[xiv] have submitted a total of three official requests for inquiry for consideration of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW Committee) to investigate discrimination and other treaty violations resulting from the EO.

The initial request for inquiry, dated June 2, 2008, asserted that the EO violates Articles 2, 3, 5, 10, 11, 12, and 16, and that the state is responsible for such violations.[xv] The subsequent requests, also sent by the Task Force CEDAW Inquiry, dated October 27, 2008, and April 22, 2009, highlight further violations by the Philippine government. In addition, the subsequent requests for inquiry discuss the controversial Reproductive Health Bill,[xvi] which present Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim does not support.[xvii]

The delay in the passage of the RH bill into law perpetuates the prevalence of restrictive policies such as the EO. Ben de Leon, President of The Forum for Family Planning and Development, stated that “This is a clear example of why we need a comprehensive reproductive health care bill passed into law in this Congress. With a Reproductive Health Care Law, government hospitals and clinics are required to provide the full range of contraceptive methods, require reproductive health education in schools, among others.”

Attorney Padilla, co-convenor of the Task Force CEDAW Inquiry, said, “The goal of the Task Force is to draw attention to the grave and systematic violations of reproductive rights of Manila residents. The inquiry is a very important procedure that allows the CEDAW experts the opportunity to visit the Philippines to investigate violations committed against women’s reproductive rights. This request for inquiry is only the second that has been submitted to the CEDAW Committee. This is historical! The impact of such a visit will not only be in the Philippines but in other countries as well where there are similar violations of women’s rights.”

Attorney Claire AP Luczon, Executive Director of WomenLEAD and also a co-convenor of the Task Force CEDAW Inquiry, stated: “By being a state party to the CEDAW, the Philippine government has committed to respect, protect and promote the human rights of women to reproductive health, including their human right to family planning information and services. Our government, thus, cannot declare one thing before the international community, and do another in contravention of its declarations in the domestic sphere. Through the inquiry procedure, our government will be called to account for the violations of the commitments it has made under CEDAW and other international human rights instruments. Hopefully, this international pressure will put a stop to the ongoing violations to women’s reproductive rights all over the country.”

At the heart of Mayor Atienza’s policy is religious fundamentalism. These types of religiously fundamental policies are encouraged by Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s (GMA) natural-family-planning-only stance.

Ben de Leon added, “Under GMA’s administration, the Population Commission only promotes NFP. Such policy is unacceptable. Research shows that the majority of Filipinos seek access to modern contraceptives through the government. The EO and GMA’s support for NFP to the exclusion of other methods of contraception are examples of bad policy. We all know that NFP has a high failure rate.”

While the Philippines is a constitutionally secular state, it is impermissible for national and local policy to be founded on religious beliefs and the government’s imposition of its own moral values. Task Force CEDAW Inquiry emphasized, “Religious fundamentalism has interfered with politics and governance violating the constitutional guarantee of separation of church and state, as well as the non-establishment of a state religion.”

Ben de Leon continued, “Both former Mayor Atienza, and current Mayor Lim have been made aware of the pervasive and devastating effects the EO is having on poor women, yet neither has made any move to address the situation.”

Atty. Padilla stressed, “Since the law has been prevailing for almost a decade now and it has not been overturned by the Mayor, the President, Congress and the judiciary, we decided to go to the United Nations CEDAW Committee as a last resort. We simply cannot let the women continue to suffer violations.”

Should the CEDAW Committee decide to conduct an inquiry, it will further investigate the CEDAW violations. The investigation would include a visit to the Philippines by designated members of the Committee. But such visit by the CEDAW Committee can only be done with the consent of the Philippine government. The Committee would then issue its findings regarding the alleged discrimination against women and recommendations for the courses of action the Philippine government should take to alleviate such discrimination.[xviii]

There has only been one other inquiry conducted since the entry into force of the Optional Protocol in December 2000. The committee issued its concluding comments on the systematic rape and murder of women in and around Ciudad Juarez in Mexico 2005.[xix] Atty. Padilla added, “With this inquiry request, we hope that the Philippine government will be pressured to comply with its international treaty obligations. It is time to put an end to the blatant discrimination against women and alleviate the dire situation that women of Manila face as a result of EO 003.”

Over a year has passed since the request for inquiry was submitted to the CEDAW Committee and the EO has not been overturned. As an update, the Philippine government was asked to submit a response to the CEDAW Committee before the end of February 2000 but almost eight months has passed and the Philippine government through DFA sill has not issued its official response. The request of the CEDAW Committee to the government already means that they considered the information submitted to them as reliable and indicative of grave and/or systematic violations as provided under Rule 83 of the CEDAW Committee Rules. The government also has not expressed its consent to the visit of the CEDAW Committee.

As cited in the 2006 CEDAW Concluding Comments on the Philippines, the nation must “strengthen measures aimed at the prevention of unwanted pregnancies, including by making a comprehensive range of contraceptives more widely available and without any restriction”, as well as “give priority attention to the situation of adolescents and that it provide sex education, targeted at girls and boys, with special attention to the prevention of early pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.”

Because of the large numbers of women being denied access to reproductive health services in Manila, in spite of the nation’s duties under CEDAW to ensure the elimination of discrimination against women, an inquiry into reproductive health violations under CEDAW is urgently needed.

For the sake of poor women in Manila, an inquiry by the CEDAW Committee is needed to provide recourse for women affected by the EO.

Tags: Agham, CEDAW, reproductive rights

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