Regional action plan for women, peace and security reviewed

WOMEN leaders from various regional line agencies, local government units and civil society organizations in the Cordillera region recently gathered in this City for the review, validation and finalization of the Regional Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security(RAPWPS).

The two-day workshop was facilitated and sponsored by the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP), in partnership with the Regional Gender and Development Committee of the Cordillera Regional Development Council.

The RAPWPS for Cordillera Administrative Region for the years 2019-2022 calls upon local actors to adopt gender perspective in peace operations, negotiations and agreements.

This RAPWPS hopes to address the triangle of violence comprised of direct/physical violence like killing, torture and intimidation; cultural violence such as marginalization as a result of the direct/ physical violence, and structural/institutional violence such as the system of globalization of economics, poverty, segregation and huger where the lesspowerful are being bullied by the more powerful ones.

Some of the common issues among the provinces in the Cordillera that came out during the provincial consultation-workshops conducted last year were on low income of women, multiple burden, high incidence of unrecorded cases of violence against women and children, slow judicial process, hence the realization that justice is expensive; low-level knowledge on laws protecting the rights of women and children, and high incidence of

teenage pregnancy.

Aware of the important roles of women in pushing the program on Women, Peace and Security (WPS), the United Nations Security Council had come up with Resolution No. 1325 in October 2000 calling for the increased participation of women at all levels of decision-making in national, regional and international conflict prevention and resolution initiatives.

The WPS aims for women’s empowerment for meaningful participation in conflict prevention, conflict resolution and peace building.

In times like these, women take double roles in order to highlight the gendered aspects of war and armed conflicts, demanding the protection of women’s rights including shielding women and girls from gender-based violence and other violations of international humanitarian laws.