Women’s rights laws in place

Although the enacting in August of the Magna Carta of Women (MCW) – a major law aiming to end discrimination against women across the archipelago – was well-received in Manila, there remain concerns about whether the legislation will be fully implemented.

Mary Joan Guan, executive director of the Centre for Women’s Research, a Manila-based advocacy and training organisation, says that the efficacy of the MCW relies on its implementation going against the trend of previous women’s rights legislation.

The Philippines “already has 27 laws concerning women’s rights…[but] in reality these laws are not implemented at all,” she says. It ratified the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1981.

The Magna Carta is the end product of two separate bills introduced in Congress in 2002. After years of debate and opposition, it was finally signed into law by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on Aug. 14.

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