‘We will continue to rage and resist’

Change is not coming when even the frontrunners of supposed change become the bearers of discrimination against women. The President’s series of anti-women remarks and rape jokes are a blatant disrespect to the Magna Carta of Women and the 1987 Constitution.

Female critics are unceasing subjects of sexist slurs in online spaces. These remarks are a reflection of a sexist and misogynist culture that targets and punishes women for being women, and contribute to the invisibility and normalization of sexual violence against women and girls. This makes access to justice for women and girls challenging and elusive especially when the judicial institutions that are supposed to ensure legal remedies are also being threatened.

We cannot and never will be silenced. We must not fear these attacks against women and girls by any individual or institution.

We continue to resist the continuing disrespect to women and girls’ rights, dignity and freedom.

We call on all women, allied individuals, organizations, and social movements to continue to challenge and expose institutions and agencies that reproduce a sexist and biased culture against women and girls.

We are in solidarity with those who continue to fight for human rights and justice, with those who detest this administration’s war on drugs, with those who oppose the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion Act, with those who continue to fight for their ancestral lands, with those who are relentless in fighting for women’s human rights.

As long as discrimination and sexual violence against women and girls persist, women will continue to rage and resist.

JELEN C. PACLARIN, executive director,

The Women’s Legal and Human Rights Bureau