CEDAW/C/PHI/CO/6 12. The Committee urges the State party to give high priority to strengthening the legal framework for the promotion of gender equality and women’s enjoyment of their human rights and, to that end, to expedite the adoption of pending bills in order to promptly bring the relevant national laws into line with the Convention. The Committee recommends that the State party undertake a systematic review of all legislation and initiate all necessary revisions so as to achieve full compliance with the provisions of the Convention. It also encourages the State party to intensify dialogue with the Muslim community in order to remove discriminatory provisions from the Code of Muslim Personal Laws. The Committee also calls upon the State party to increase its efforts to sensitize parliamentarians and public opinion regarding the importance of these reforms. 13. While recognizing the efforts of the State party to integrate a gender perspective into all fields and to collect statistical data for gender and development indicators, the Committee is concerned that the national machinery for the advancement of women, i.e., the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women, lacks the necessary institutional authority, capacity and resources to effectively promote implementation of the Convention and support gender mainstreaming across all sectors and levels of Government to bring about equality for women and men in all fields. 14. The Committee calls on the State party to give urgent priority to the strengthening of the national machinery for the advancement of women and to provide it with the authority, decision-making power and human and financial resources that are necessary to work effectively for the promotion of gender equality and the enjoyment of women’s human rights. The Committee recommends that the national machinery take a more proactive role in the formulation of laws, policies and programmes for the effective implementation of the Convention, as well as in monitoring the Philippine Plan for GenderResponsive Development and the use of the gender mainstreaming strategy in all sectoral departments to realize the equality of women with men. 15. While welcoming the establishment of family courts in major cities all over the country to foster an active approach to protecting the rights of women and children against domestic violence and incest, the Committee remains concerned about the prevalence of violence against women. The Committee notes with appreciation the Anti-Rape Law of 1997, which redefines and expands rape from a crime against chastity to a crime against the person and implicitly recognizes marital rape. However, the Committee is concerned that the subsequent possibility for the wife, as the offended party, to forgive the crime extinguishes the criminal dimension of the action and the consequent severity of the penalty. 16. The Committee recommends that the State party undertake measures to increase awareness of all forms of violence against women, including domestic violence, marital rape and incest, and the unacceptability of all such violence. It recommends that the Anti-Rape Law of 1997 be reviewed with a view to repealing the provision pertaining to the extinguishing of the criminal action. It calls on the State party to enhance data collection on various forms of violence against women, especially domestic violence. It urges the State party to conduct research on the prevalence, causes and consequences of domestic violence to 06-48052 3