Courts, Congress failing women

In 1999, the Swedish Parliament passed the Sex Purchase Law that prosecutes the client of a prostitute but views the prostitute (whether man, woman or child) as an “exploited victim.”

In an interview in 2008, a member of Sweden’s human trafficking unit of the national police board told the media: “We don’t have a problem with prostitutes. We have a problem with men who buy sex.” Customers caught having dealings with prostitutes are penalized with fines or up to six months in prison plus “the humiliation of public exposure.”

I do remember a speaker from Sweden in an international conference on trafficking explaining that in the immediate aftermath of the law’s passage, the number of men patronizing prostitutes dropped drastically. It was not because of the law, she explained, “but because TV camera operators were stationed in street corners where prostitutes hung around and the customers were afraid of being exposed.” (In 2005, a Supreme Court justice had to pay a fine after admitting he had paid a male prostitute.)

There are, of course, critics of the law, including women in sex work, who say the law has only driven prostitution underground and into “more dangerous” situations for the women. But by focusing on the culpability of customers and pimps, the law has decreased demand for prostitutes and “reshaped attitudes toward the sex trade.”

Compare the situation in Sweden with our situation in the Philippines, where a legislative act amending Article 202 of the Revised Penal Code would strike the crime of “vagrancy” from the penal code but retain penalties for “prostitutes” (who are defined in the law as only women).

The enrolled bill has been passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate (with unseemly haste and in secrecy) and is now on the desk of President Aquino, waiting for his signature—or his inaction in which case it would lapse into law. Women’s groups are urging P-Noy to veto it.

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For nine years, recalls Jean Enriquez, executive director of the Coalition against Trafficking of Women-Asia Pacific (CATW-AP), “survivors have been testifying publicly and before the Philippine Congress, including this 15th Congress, on how law enforcers arrest, ask sexual favors, money or cell phones from the women arrested (in lieu) of jail time. This law has been used and abused by both police and prosecutors, to continue to re-victimize persons in prostitution. Most recently, CATW-AP rescued 27 women from jail, even as some of them were already being asked for money by the arresting officers. The public prosecutor even asked the judge for an arrest warrant against (me) after (I) assumed custody of the charged women in prostitution.”

Women’s groups, said Enriquez, have long been pushing “for a law that will remove accountability away from the bought and onto the male buyers as well as the pimps.” Legislators should be aware that women’s groups have always been opposed to moves to retain the discriminatory provision against prostitutes, demanding for “a comprehensive Anti-Prostitution Bill, instead of simply amending Article 202.”

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In 2006, when the Philippine government presented its compliance report before the Experts’ Committee of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (Cedaw), the committee called on the government “to take appropriate measures to suppress the exploitation of prostitution of women, including through the discouragement of the demand for prostitution. It should also facilitate the reintegration of prostitutes into society and provide rehabilitation, social integration and economic empowerment programs to women and girls who are victims of exploitation and trafficking.” The comments also called on government to fund nongovernment organizations working with victims of prostitution and trafficking to find alternate means of income or training.

Now I wonder how the Cedaw committee would feel, when the Philippines faces it later this year, when it finds out that not only has its recommendation been ignored, but that the legislature even went ahead and singled out women prostitutes for particular punishment.

Then again, given our government’s penchant for signing international conventions and covenants then ignoring the meaning and intent of these documents completely, should we be surprised?

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A recent visitor to the country was lawyer Pramila Patten, a member of the Cedaw experts’ committee who yesterday addressed a group of women’s NGOs, academics, government officials and survivors of violence in a “Forum on Cedaw and Women’s Access to Justice.”

A common theme among the talks of Patten (who hails from Mauritius) and the other speakers was that, while the Philippines has passed a remarkable number of laws guaranteeing and protecting women’s human rights, “police and courts are failing women in the delivery of justice.”

Liza Martinez of the Philippine Deaf Resource Center, spoke of how justice is systematically denied deaf women, particularly rape victims. In fact, it was while sitting in on the promulgation of a rape case filed by a deaf woman who lost the case, that Martinez realized that as long as the legal system remains unsympathetic and unresponsive to the problems of the Deaf, there is no way they can get justice. The same case has now been submitted to the Cedaw under the Optional Protocol for a ruling.

Lawyer Evalyn Ursua, who helped Karen Vertido win a positive judgment (recommending monetary compensation) from Cedaw, spoke of her extreme frustration with the government’s (non) response, contesting the ruling and even declaring that Vertido must first go to court before she is ever entitled to any compensation.