Philippine Alliance of Women With Disabilities cases filed by deaf women and girls outnumber all other types of complaints in a ratio of 10:1. Gathering of baseline data by the cross-disability Philippine Coalition on the UNCRPD on Supreme Court cases involving persons with disabilities from 2008-2011, showed that 20% of 126 cases are on gender-based violence, almost exclusively on women and girls with intellectual disabilities. These data from civil society are several magnitudes higher than regional statistics reported by the Philippine National Police and the National Statistical Coordination Board.16 Re Issue para 717:”…provide information on measures taken to ensure that victims of violence, including women with disabilities, have access to high-quality protection and support services, including shelters and rehabilitation programmes.” Comments on para 7.6 of State Reply18 to Issue: Regarding measures that the State cites which are supposed to ensure access of victims violence to high-quality protection and support services including for women with disabilities” (para 7.6), this Alliance finds no evidence of this whatsoever on the ground (see Annex II-2). Re Issue para 719:”…provide information on measures taken to ensure full compliance with the views adopted by the Committee in the cases… no 34/2011, R.P.B.[sic] v. the Philippines” Comments on para 7.8 of State Reply20 to Issue: It is unclear if the State has actually submitted a formal response to the views adopted by the CEDAW Committee on Communication No. 34/2011, R.P.B. [sic] v. the Philippines, which was due in August 201421. This Alliance would like to clarify the legal basis for the State position that “A law is necessary to implement the recommendations of CEDAW Committee with respect to compensation”, and furthermore, whether they have initiated this legislative process. Also we would like to know whether the proposed legal remedies are acceptable to the Committee. Information on recent developments Despite the existence of several public shelters and centers, these are not accessible in terms of built environments, or for information and communications, thus seriously restricting, or even outright denying, opportunities and access to these programs and services by women and girls/children with disabilities. For instance, virtually all of these do not accept deaf women and girls because they say they are not equipped, or do not know sign language22. In the meantime, violence against deaf women continue unabated as reported for instance by the Tri-People Deaf Association of Cotabato Province in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM)23. The Philippine National Police, and Office of the Prosecutor remain largely ineffective in addressing these cases because of barriers in communication. The distance of this Region from the National Capital also makes this area of the Philippine archipelago particularly hard to reach for disadvantaged sectors of women such as women and girls with disabilities. 1. In each of its 2,000 lower courts, the Judiciary has full-time positions for Court Interpreter who provide services for spoken languages. There are no such State employees, or provisions for the 16 Access to Justice: Case Monitoring Report by the Philippine Deaf Resource Center (2006-2012) 17 CEDAW_C_PHL_Q_7-8_22448_E CEDAW_C_PHL_Q_7-8_Add-1_23670_E. 19 CEDAW_C_PHL_Q_7-8_22448_E 20 CEDAW_C_PHL_Q_7-8_Add-1_23670_E. 18 21 Report of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women. 57th session. CEDAW/C/2014/I/CRP 22 PDRC / Deaf Resources Philippines case notes. A deaf people’s organization, the Filipino Deaf Women’s Health and Crisis Center had no choice but to open their own shelter however could only sustain it for less than two years because of the absence of public support, as well as barriers in accessibility and the accreditation process of the Department of Social Welfare and Development. 23 Personal communication through Philippine Federation of the Deaf. 17 February 2016. 5