As delivered
The Philippines welcomes this opportunity to share and discuss with this
Committee the status of its compliance with the UN Convention on the Elimination of
All Forms of Discrimination against Women, or CEDAW, a treaty that the Philippines
has always been fully committed to promote and implement.
We have come prepared to dialogue with this purpose. With openness, we
come ready to learn from the expertise of the members of the Committee, trusting
that this process shall move our country forward in its sincere effort to promote,
protect, and fulfill the rights and freedoms of all Filipino women.
The Philippines is pleased to inform this Committee that in the 2015 Global
Gender Gap Index, the World Economic Forum ranked the Philippines in 7th place
overall for gender equality out of 145 countries, the highest in the Asia-Pacific region.
The Philippines, in the last ten years, has consistently been in the top 10 of
the 2015 Global Gender Gap Index.
In the six years of the Aquino administration, the former president’s social
contract with the Filipino People facilitated this achievement further, from a lack of
concern for gender disparities and shortfalls to the promotion of equal gender
opportunity in all spheres of public policies and programs.
But the most significant improvement was in the area of women
empowerment, which has become more multi-faceted than ever. Filipino women
play a plethora of roles in the Philippine society--both in the government and the
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