CEDAW/C/SR.748 (A) 21. Ms. Coker-Appiah said that article 12 obliged States to provide high-quality, accessible family planning services. She was very concerned that the current Government was promoting natural family planning methods, which the delegation still had not defined for the Committee. Her understanding was that it referred to the rhythm or withdrawal method, which required both parties to be responsible. However, the delegation had previously stated that family planning remained largely a female responsibility. Since women generally had little or no power to impose conditions in relation to sex, she wondered how the Philippine Government could expect women to do so. The Government should put aside religious considerations and look seriously at women’s rights. Despite the huge number of women risking imprisonment and death to have an abortion, the Government still insisted on following its unrealistic approach. 22. Ms. Tan said that she was not convinced that there was the political will to build on povertyalleviation programmes initiated under different leaderships. Learning from previous mistakes and improving existing programmes was key to obtaining results. One area the Government might wish to look at was the extent to which women were being sidelined from the benefits of land titles, productive resources and support services in agrarian reform programmes as a result of gender discrimination and stereotyping. In that regard, she wondered whether the Government was planning to establish a sex-disaggregated data collection at the barangay level, so that such an analysis could be carried out. 23. According to documentation provided, women represented only 25.5 per cent of beneficiaries of agricultural programmes and twice as many men as women were registered holders of land ownership certificates. The Government should study the reasons behind such figures and report the findings at the grass-roots level, to raise awareness of women’s rights. The Government’s “Productivity Skills and Capability Building (PSCB) for Disadvantaged Women” programme had helped many women find jobs. Had any studies been conducted to find out if the traditionally “female” skills taught were effective in sustaining women in the highly competitive market over the medium or long term? If not, did the Government plan to conduct such a study? 24. Lastly, what was preventing the Government from providing the whole population with access to 06-46703 clean drinking water and water for sanitation at an affordable price? 25. Ms. Simms had noted the indication that victims of botched abortions were going to hospitals for treatment. Her concern was that other procedures might be neglected as a result, especially in rural areas. The delegation had stated that none of the women concerned had been arrested. But why would they be? Surely the people arranging or performing the abortion were the ones who should be arrested. It was also important to consider why women were getting abortions in the first place. One reason was poverty. Another was that many of the women had become pregnant because they were victims of incest or had been raped by soldiers or policemen in their own communities. Women were seeking abortions not because they wanted them, but because the conditions under which they had become pregnant were absolutely inhumane. The Government needed to consider all those factors. 26. Turning to rural women, she said that she understood the problems facing the country, such as the high external debt and the lack of infrastructure. The same problems affected all third-world countries. However, rural women still needed to be encouraged to stay in their communities so that they did not migrate to the cities and become the next wave of overseas workers. In response to the suggestion that working overseas was a matter of individual choice, she stressed that women who had to work in slavery-like conditions in other countries did so not out of choice, but out of necessity. The situation would continue as long as there was overwhelming poverty. 27. She was also concerned about incidents of political violence against women, in particular rural and indigenous women. While the Convention did not specifically address political murders, abusing or imprisoning women who took a stand against the Government constituted a violation of their human right to question authority. Military force should not be used against such women or against indigenous people who spoke out about ancestral rights, land rights and pollution. She hoped that the national machinery would look closely at what was happening. 28. Ms. Nieto (Philippines) said that the Government promoted, and had allocated resources to, both natural and artificial family planning. Natural family planning required fertility awareness and gender sensitivity. The 5