BY MATÉ ESPINA
NEGROS Occidental has started with its 16 days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence with a series of webinars initiated by the Negros Occidental Language and Information Technology Center (NOLITC).
NOLITC is a technical-vocational institution that has been recognized as a successful poverty reduction strategy of the provincial government as it provides training and job opportunities to many, particularly those who are eligible for employment in the BPO industry.
With public gatherings still a no-no in the province because of the pandemic, NOLITC spearheaded the webinars to continue with gender advocacy and I was privileged to be their first speaker talking about reproductive health issues and a bit of gender-based violence.
The 16 days of Activism is a campaign that was initially started to end violence against women. This year, the United Nations is leading the celebration with a campaign theme, “Orange the World: Fund, Respond, Prevent, Collect!”
According to the UN, “As the world retreated inside homes due to the lockdown measures introduced to curb the COVID-19 pandemic, reports showed an alarming increase in the already existing pandemic of violence against women at exactly the time that services, including rule of law, health and shelters, are being diverted to address the pandemic.”
This is quite interesting to note because on the contrary, our Western Visayas Regional Police Office reported a 35-percent drop in the number of cases of violence against women and children (VAWC) just last month.
Capt. Mona Guia Menez of the Regional Women and Children Protection Desk attributed the restrictions of the quarantine measures to have decreased the number of VAWC cases, particularly the liquor ban.
I partly agree to the liquor ban making an impact, but we can also surmise that the lockdown restrictions probably made it more difficult to report cases of violence to the authorities. Even without the influence of liquor, to be locked down bring about a lot of stressors that could facilitate aggression.
When I was preparing for my presentation, I researched a bit about cases of violence in Western Visayas and the data I culled for 2018 from the regional police showed that half of the total cases are from Iloilo province including Iloilo City followed by Negros Occidental and Bacolod accounting for 18 percent of cases. Capiz and Aklan had 14 percent each while Antique and Guimaras accounts for 4 percent each.
The trend is the same for this year with Iloilo City leading in the number of cases at 30 percent followed by Iloilo province. Capiz and Negros Occidental accounts for 10 percent each, closely followed by Aklan, Guimaras, Antique and Bacolod having the lowest number at 21 cases only.
Hmmm. It could also be that there is under reporting of these cases as what one provincial employee in charge of the Gender and Development program here recounted. Apparently, there are some police stations who do not record VAWC complaints if the victim is not yet sure of filing a case against the perpetrator, especially if it’s the husband or partner.
I just hope the drop is not caused by underreporting just so the authorities can claim they are successful in their advocacy.
Another interesting data in the 2018 report of the regional police is the claim that in 2017, 12.6 percent of women in Western Visayas reportedly committed physical violence against their husbands or partners in that year. Furthermore, 22.3 percent had at one time or another committed violence against their partners.
Simply said, either spouse or partner can instigate domestic violence but we cannot deny the fact that more men perpetrate it than women.
Nevertheless, I had a lengthy discussion with another feminist friend on whether I have to present that claim or not as it could muddle the issue on VAWC. But I insisted that since it is an official data from authorities, I need to provide all context and perhaps, that could lead to another discussion on finding out what is really happening on the ground.
Could it be that men are using the VAWC law to their advantage by reporting ahead of the women? Could it be that the violence committed against these men who reported was mere offshoot of the women fighting back after getting hit first? Or are women already empowered and simply fighting back? Are our women just stopped being victims and are becoming perpetrators themselves?
These data from the regional police have alerted women advocates and there are now plans to further study what is the real situation and what could be prompting these reports.
At the end of the day, it is all about power. The one more powerful usually inflicts violence and while our authorities may claim a drop, it may be based solely on the difficulty of reporting and not entirely because abuses actually lessened.
The realities of today show a huge rise in unemployment, lockdowns causing hunger with livelihood severely affected, people cooped up in their homes, and children also schooled at home. Any of these will cause stress in the domicile and along with that, violence is not far behind./PN
