The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Philippines hosted "Breakfast for Her: UNiTE by 2030 to End Violence against Women" on December 12, serving as its culminating activity for the 18-Day Campaign to End Violence Against Women (VAW).

“The Breakfast for Her series is an initiative by UNFPA to create champions of women and girls’ rights and increase advocacy and alarm the importance of gender, SRHR and GBV issues. It also aims to take collective action to ensure that stakeholders in the Philippines put gender and human rights issues in its core of policymaking,” said Dr. Leila Joudane, UNFPA Philippines Country Representative.

UNFPA and the Philippine Commission on Women (PCW) discussed the challenges faced by Filipino women and girls, as well as their initiatives to prevent and address gender-based violence, especially adolescent pregnancy and child marriage.

PCW Executive Director Atty. Kristine Rosary E. Yuzon-Chavez pointed out that despite the decrease in the reported VAW cases in the country, this does not imply that VAW has gone down. She said there is still underreporting, especially for cases that occurred at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

"Multi-sectoral approach is needed in addressing VAW, it is important for us to take collective action, the government alone cannot end VAW," she said. 

UNFPA shared its call to action to end VAW with its development partners:

• jointly advocate to raise awareness and support legislation, implementation, and governance of policies and programmes;
• invest in ensuring the resilience of the delivery of services even during crisis situations brought upon by climate change, natural calamities, and conflict;
• call for greater support for increased long-term, sustainable investments towards making sure that sexual and reproductive health services and comprehensive sexuality education to address SRHR and GBV are financed;
• collectively engage with all stakeholders to transform social gender norms and address structural inequalities to prevent gender based violence, and to support the agency of women, girls and youth;
• generate and use robust data and evidence to guide the formulation and implementation of programs and policies concerning Gender-Based Violence (GBV) and harmful practices for women and girls.

“It will take dedicated and bold investment for countries to achieve the sustainable development target of eliminating VAW by the end of this decade. The costs of inaction are too great. Today, we call upon our development partners to unite and invest, to prevent violence against women and girls,” Joudane said.

During the discussion, ambassadors and representatives from embassies asked about the presented statistics and how the government is ensuring that frontliners such as village/barangay officials and staff are trained to respond to cases of gender-based violence. The officials asked how gaps can be addressed, how useful information can be better disseminated, and how men can be engaged in the campaign to end VAW.

The Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands H.E. Marielle Geraedts, who is also the  European Union (EU) Gender Champion, highlighted the need for a united approach in ending violence against women. 

“I support your call to action which addresses legislation and policy — it addresses the enforcement implementation that is lacking in some areas," she said. 

UNFPA will continue supporting interventions to end gender-based violence as it transitions to its new 5-year Country Programme starting next year. 

The development partners who attended the “Breakfast for Her” meeting are Embassy of the Kingdom of Netherlands Ambassador H.E. Marielle Geraedts, New Zealand Embassy Ambassador H.E. Peter Kell, Embassy of Finland Ambassador H.E. Juha Pyykkö, British Embassy Ambassador H.E. Laure Beaufils, Embassy of Spain Chargé d'Affaires a.i. Ms. Carmela Barcia, Embassy of Canada Head of Cooperation Mr. John Lok,  Delegation of the European Union Head of Cooperation Mr. Christoph Wagner, Australian Embassy First Secretary Ms. Georgina Harley-Cavanough, Embassy of Japan First Secretary Mr. Chihiro Kanno, German Embassy First Secretary Mr. Alexander Schmidt,  USAID Health Office Director Dr. Andrea Halverson, Embassy of France Political Advisor Ms. Francesca Fuentes, Embassy of Sweden Communications Officer Ms. Athena Cartagena.