conducted. According to the AMA, "researchers on family violence agree that the true incidence of partner violence is probably double the above estimates; or four million severely assaulted women per year." Studies on prevalence suggest that from one-fifth to one-third of all women will be physically assaulted by a partner or ex-partner during their lifetime... Thus on an average day in the United States, nearly 11,000 women are severely assaulted by their male partners. Many of these incidents involve sexual assault... In families where wife beating takes place, moreover, child abuse is often present as well. Other studies fill in the rest of this troubling picture. Physical violence is only the most visible form of abuse. Psychological abuse, particularly forced social and economic isolation of women, is also common. Many victims of domestic violence remain with their abusers, perhaps because they perceive no superior alternative...Many abused women who find temporary refuge in shelters return to their husbands, in large part because they have no other source of income... Returning to one's abuser can be dangerous. Recent Federal Bureau of Investigation statistics disclose that 8.8 percent of all homicide victims in the United States are killed by their spouses...Thirty percent of female homicide victims are killed by their male partners. Finally in 1994, the United States Congress enacted the Violence Against Women Act. In the International front, the women's struggle for equality was no less successful. The United States Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirmed the equality of all human beings. In 1979, the UN General Assembly adopted the landmark Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). In 1993, the UN General Assembly also adopted the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women. World conferences on the role and rights of women have been regularly held in Mexico City, Copenhagen, Nairobi and Beijing. The UN itself established a Commission on the Status of Women. The Philippines has been in cadence with the half – and full – steps of all these women's movements. No less than Section 14, Article II of our 1987 Constitution mandates the State to recognize the role of women in nation building and to ensure the fundamental equality before the law of women and men. Our Senate has ratified the CEDAW as well as the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its two protocols. To cap it all, Congress, on March 8, 2004, enacted Rep. Act No. 9262, entitled "An Act Defining Violence Against Women and Their Children, Providing for Protective Measures for Victims, Prescribing Penalties therefor and for other Purposes." (Citations omitted) B. Women are the "usual" and "most likely" victims of violence. At the time of the presentation of Senate Bill No. 2723, official statistics on violence against women and children show that – x x x physical injuries had the highest number of cases at 5,058 in 2002 representing 55.63% of total cases reported (9,903). And for the first semester of 2003, there were 2,381 reported cases out of 4,354 cases which represent 54.31%. xxx (T)he total number of women in especially difficult circumstances served by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) for the year 2002, there are 1,417 physically abused/maltreated cases out of the total of 5,608 cases. xxx (T)here are 1,091 DSWD cases out of a total number of 3,471 cases for the first semester of 2003.