CEDAW/C/PHI/5-6 women to borrow and obtain loans or secure credit arrangements. Women have to voluntarily submit for membership in GSIS or SSS rather than these systems initiating the procedures to ensure women’s membership. 541. Efficiency of the courts is important in providing equal treatment for women and girl-child victims. A more gender-sensitive bench is also called for in hearing domestic violence cases. 542. Facilities of the courts to victims of domestic violence should also be enhanced. Specifically, these should be designed to provide protection and security for victims and witnesses. Providing accurate information on criminal court processes, protecting the victim through appropriate court orders and preventing the perpetrator from using further illegal means to continue the coercive control of the victim should be done. 543. Education on women’s rights should be prioritized so that women can truly be empowered. Strict implementation of laws upholding equal rights and equal access to opportunities must be monitored, and policies and laws reviewed to correct loopholes in existing laws. Article 16 Equality in Marriage and Family Law Equality rights with respect to marriage and family relations A. WOMEN’S SITUATION 544. Development processes are reshaping Filipino families, which have become smaller in size and more nuclear in composition. By developing country standards, however, Filipino women still marry early. In 1998, the median age at first marriage of women aged 25 to 49 years was 22.1 years, an increase of 0.5 year over the 1993 figure of 21.6 years. Registered marriages in 1998 totaled 549,265, which was 9.0 percent more than the 1995 figure of 503,650 (NSO 2002). 545. Education appears to influence age at marriage. For women with high school education, the median age at first marriage was 21.5 years, compared to 19.8 and 18.7 years of those with elementary and no education, respectively. For the college educated, the median age was about 25.2 years. 546. Various policy and program initiatives were implemented to promote and protect women’s equal rights in marriage and family relations. However, traditional gender-role definitions persist despite the fact that women are already economically active. 144