The Embassy of France to the Philippines and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) are jointly hosting a webinar to highlight the progress and obstacles that remain in ensuring that women are freely able to exercise their sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR), as well as to identify and address the gender inequalities that persist amongst healthcare workers.
Entitled “On the Road to the Generation Equality Forum”, the webinar will be streamed live on June 10, 2021, 2-4 pm on the Facebook pages of the UNFPA Philippines (https://www.facebook.com/UNFPAph) and of the Embassy of France to the Philippines (https://www.facebook.com/FrenchEmbassyPH/).
In a statement, the Embassy of France said the webinar is a precursor to the Generation Equality Forum (GEF), the largest international gathering dedicated to women’s rights and gender equality to be hosted in Paris from June 30 to July 2, 2021.
Co-organized by the Philippine Commission on Women, the webinar will feature speakers from the Department of Health (DOH), the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), the Likhaan Center for Women’s Health, the Integrated Midwives Association of the Philippines, and from the diplomatic corps to discuss the importance of a gender-equal and protected health care workforce and the promotion of the bodily autonomy of women and young girls in the Philippines.
The webinar will also encourage concerned stakeholders in the Philippines to make more ambitious commitments to ensure the access of women and girls to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) services and, more broadly, promote gender equality within the context of the Generation Equality Forum.
Since the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action 26 years ago, the GEF is gathering a group of 90 champions composed of governments, international organizations, civil society groups, and the private sector to draft a Global Acceleration Plan consisting of concrete goals and actions towards achieving true gender equality by 2026.
The forum comes at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated existing challenges in guaranteeing women’s right to their bodily autonomy.
In a UNFPA’s State of World Population Report published last April 2021, it showed that nearly half of women respondents in 57 developing countries are still denied their right to make independent decisions over health care, contraception and the ability to say yes or no to sex.
In the same report, it said only 56 percent of countries have laws and policies supporting comprehensive sexuality education.
Around 70 percent of the 135 million health workers all over the world are women, according to the 2019 report by the Gender Equity Hub which likewise outlines the extent of gender inequalities in the health sector in five key messages: 1) decision-making in the health sector is largely dominated by men; 2) gender biases, discrimination, and inequities in the workplace are systemic; 3) women are either underpaid or unpaid for their work; 4) violence and sexual harassment in the health care sector are widespread; 5) gender norms and stereotypes deeply reinforce occupational segregation.
It is in this context that the French government, which places gender equality as a priority through its feminist foreign policy, is working alongside the World Health Organization (WHO) for the Gender Equal Health and Care Workforce Initiative (GEHCWI) as a complementary action to the GEF.
This Initiative aims to mobilize governments, international organizations, civil society representatives and the private sector to empower women in the health care sector by making concrete commitments around four major themes: women’s leadership, remuneration and informal work, sexual harassment and violence, and working conditions.
To participate in the Generation Equality Forum, interested parties are enjoined to register until June 27, 2021 through the following link: https://forumgenerationegalite.fr/en/get-involved/register