Women and children most vulnerable to military abuses - Gabriela

Press Release | March 25, 2010 | Davao City - Wearing black shirts and depicting women as gagged and blindfolded, Gabriela Women’s Party together with other women and children advocates held a picket rally today to mourn for the women victims of militarization in light of the observance of Women's Month.

“It is sad to note that as we commemorate Women's Month this March, we have recorded anew cases of women and children as the most vulnerable victims of human rights violations because of  militarization,” said Nisa Opalla, Gabriela Women’s Party Southern Mindanao Region Spokesperson said.

"The picture of women gagged and blindfolded symbolizes women's condition that we are not exempted from the desperateness of the Arroyo regime to stay in power," Opalla said.

Opalla cited the case of the victims of military's red-tagging in Santa Cruz, Davao del Sur, also known as the Santa Cruz 7, which involved a woman health worker.

"One of the of the victims of the Santa Cruz 7 charged with frustrated murder by the members of Philippine Army's 39th Infantry Battalion and 72nd IB Civilian Auxiliary Force Geographical Unit (CAFGU) was a woman health worker connected with the nongovernmental Urban Integrated Health Services Foundation " Opalla said.

"We also note that five of the victims of  the Monkayo 13 case are women, two of which are children both 15 years old," she added.

The case of the Monkayo 13 involved around 60 armed men which are composite elements of 25th Infantry Battalion, Philippine Army and Scout Rangers based in the Poblacion of Monkayo, Compostela Valley Province who illegally arrested and detained 13 loggers from Mt. Diwalwal.

"These civilian women and minors were harassed, intimidated, illegal arrested, arbitrarily detained," Opalla said.

For the 9 years seat of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo since 2001, more than 119 women were victims of extra-judicial killings.

"Most of these women victims were raped before they were brutally killed," Opalla said. “Human rights record holds true that sexual harassment is still the same worn-out military tactic to extract information from women victims," she added.

“As these women experience military harassment, we also take into account that these women are emotionally triggered as they think about feeding their children and other worries in their homes and families. It is on this scenario that the state maneuvered by a woman president is harsher to the marginalized women," she said.

“Ironically, laws favorable to women like the Magna Carta of Women and the Anti-Violence against Women and Children Law were passed under the Arroyo regime--laws that are being implemented tokenistically and violated frequently by the government that passed it," Opalla added.

How could women participate freely in politics if the government, itself  mandates their repression?" she said. #