By Ellalyn De Vera-Ruiz
A research group expressed alarm over the increasing number of sexual abuse cases allegedly perpetrated by policemen against Filipino women.
(c) Pixabay / MANILA BULLETIN
An ongoing monitoring of the Center for Women’s Resources (CWR) on state-perpetrated violence against women from January 2017 to July 2018, documents 13 cases of abuses—eight cases of rape, three cases of acts of lasciviousness, one case of harassment, and one case of physical assault.
“The high number of state-perpetrated violence against women is very alarming. It only reflects how abusive the authorities have become under a regime that sends signal of impunity to its armed forces and blatantly disregards women’s human rights,” CWR executive director Jojo Guan said.
Guan noted that more than half of the documented cases are related to the President’s war on drugs.
“War on drugs becomes an excuse for sexual abuse,” she pointed out.
According to the cases monitored by CWR, out of the 13 documented cases, seven are related to war on drugs—either the abuse is committed during a drug operation or the victim is a female drug suspect. These cases include four cases of rape and three cases of acts of lasciviousness.
Documented rape cases include two female inmates from Olongapo City and Hagonoy, Bulacan, both charged with illegal possession of firearms and raped while in detention.
The Philippine National Police reported that the number of rape cases has decreased since the implementation of war on drugs. From January 2016 to August 2017, the number of rape cases was in a downward trend, noting that record on August 2017 is lessened by 200 cases, as compared to the same period the previous year.
“Firstly, rapists have no standard description. They can be addicts as well as state enforcers. They can be peddlers as well as politicians. Any man who thinks of women as sex object is a potential abuser. Secondly, rape still proliferates where 75 percent of the victims are children,” Guan explained.
"War on drugs did not solve anything. It did not solve drug addiction and crimes. It is a war waged against the poor and the marginalized. It gave the authorities the license to kill and abuse people, especially women and children," she added. (Ellalyn De Vera-Ruiz)