MANILA – The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) called on the Government to review its monitoring and assessment tools of the country’s indicators and targets on gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls enshrined in the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal No. 5.
“The country’s seemingly fair ratings of its SDG5 indicators and targets do not reflect the situation on the ground,” said Esperanza Ocampo, TUCP Vice President and Women’s Committee Chairperson. Ocampo also serves as the National President of the Philippine Government Employees Association (PGEA) and as member of the Women’s Committee of the International Trade Union Confederation Asia Pacific (ITUC-AP).
Citing data from the Philippine Statistics Authority, Esperanza said that latest data on labor force participation and overseas migrant Filipino workers run counters to SDG5 key result areas and depicts a “dreadful pattern of illiteracy, precarious work if not unemployment, and the often-fatal necessity to seek better pay as domestic workers abroad.”
In December 2022, out of the 51.22 Million workers in the labor force, 56 percent were women. Unemployment rate was also higher among women at 4.9 percent while men posted 3.9 percent.
The PSA also reported that women are most likely to work abroad. From April to September 2021, 60.2 percent or 1.10 Million of the 1.83 Million Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) were women. About 64.8 percent were engaged in elementary occupations, followed by service and sales workers at 17.1 percent.
“These figures not only represent the perpetual disparity in access to socioeconomic opportunities between men and women but also provide us with the real situation of Filipinas typecasted into either unpaid household work, emotional labor, or precarious work both here and abroad,” Ocampo stressed.
“Much of Filipino women are bound by the limited opportunities made available for them just because they are women. Most women are dutybound to tend to their households and miss the opportunity to develop their potentials and actively participate in social and economic life,” Ocampo explained.
Scoring 0.783 in a scale of 0 to 1, the Philippines still has a 21.7 percent gender gap to close according to the 2022 Global Gender Gap Report of the World Economic Forum.
“Gender gap and inequality is a social ill that weaves into the very moral fiber of our society. While we all agree that the Philippines is a matriarchal nation, Government, civil society groups and the private sector must mainstream women empowerment or the lack of it,” the TUCP executive said.
TUCP has been pushing for the ratification of International Labor Convention 190 or the elimination of violence and harassment at the workplace. TUCP urged the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) to fast-track the ratification of ILC 190 to enable the passage of an implementing rules and regulations. Ocampo also announced that the TUCP will hold a series of activities to celebrate women and their contribution in nation building. March 8 is Women’s Rights and International Peace Day per Proclamation No. 224 s. 1988.
Among the SDG targets are ending all forms of discrimination against all women and girls, elimination of all forms of violence against all women and girls including trafficking, sexual and other types of exploitation, elimination of all harmful practices such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation, ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights, undertake reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources as well as access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property, financial services, inheritance and natural resources, and to adopt and strengthen sound policies and enforceable legislation for the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls at all levels.
