Philippine Communist Party [pkp-1930], Message to the Intl Women's Day Rally in Tokyo

3/3/21 8:37 AM
  • Philippines, Philippines Communist Party [PKP - 1930] En Asia Communist and workers' parties

 

March 02, 2021

 

COMRADE MURAKAMI RIEKO

Chairperson of the Executive Committee

2021 International Women’s Day, 3.6 Tokyo Rally

c/o Activist Group SHISO-UNDO

e-mail : 小川町企画 <ogmt@circus.ocn.ne.jp>

 

Dear Comrade Murakami,

 

Through you, the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP-1930, the Philippine Communist Party) sends warmest greetings to all the women and workers of the Activist Group SHISO-UNDO and of the Hongo Cultural Forum Workers School (HOWS) who will be holding the 2021 International Women's Day Rally in Tokyo on March 6.

 

In the Philippines, the past year of the pandemic has been of greater distress to women in general, and particularly to single mothers who have lost their jobs. The lockdown, as well as the distance-learning regimen for children, have also been of greater work burden to mothers, given the historically male-dominant culture developed by the neo-colonial capitalist system.

 

The past year of the pandemic joblessness and poverty also saw more grave anti-women forms of discrimination, dominance and exploitation, such as a general rise in cases of violence against women under lockdown, a rise in cases of teenage pregnancy, and a rise in the number of child brides who were practically “sold” by impoverished families in Moslem areas. There is also a new phenomenon of on-line transactions for sexual “relationships”.

 

Financially-distressed young women (usually students and single mothers) are lured by “sugar-dating” sites in the internet to give their personal details, contact numbers and pictures, which become part of a data base of women who are “available” for sexual relationships (so-called “sugar babies”) in exchange for the promise of allegedly wealthy men (the so-called “sugar daddies”) to support them financially. Sugar-dating sites get subscriptions from supposedly rich seekers who can pay hefty membership fees, and who are categorized according to their self-declared levels of wealth. The data base of available women is also categorized and sold in batches to paying subscribers, with the list of beauty-pageant-quality young women being offered to higher-paying “premium” subscribers. The dating site then serves as an allegedly “safe online environment” where potential sugar-daddies connect with the young women that they fancy to form “sugar relationships”.

 

Earlier dating platforms specifically for illicit relationships like these have drawn flak, such as the Canada-based AshleyMadison site, which got a lot of angry attacks from spouses for encouraging infidelity. By some convoluted logic, some sites even pay lip-service to alleged “women empowerment”, claiming that their dating services give women “freedom of choice” after months of the boring companionship of their husbands or partners during the pandemic ! Sugar-dating sites also now present themselves as platforms for “consenting adults” to form “sugar relationships”, in a bid to prove that their “money-for-romance” business and their commercial facilitation services for sugar-dating transactions do not come under the purview of criminal laws on prostitution and sex trafficking or pimping.

 

The year-long pandemic and widespread loss of jobs has seen a dramatic rise in the number of financially-distressed young women (particularly single mothers and students) offering themselves as potential “sugar-babies”. According to an Asia-based sugar-dating site with an alleged 1-million membership, they have a stable of around 127,000 sugar-babies from all over the Philippines, aged between 18 and 34 years old. Around 46% of them are students, while 25% come from the now long-shuttered hospitality and entertainment businesses.

 

In any capitalist country where they normally operate, the flesh trade is of great risk to women, and especially so during this pandemic period. Despite all the promises of big lifetime incomes, relationships facilitated by sugar-dating sites are not between potential long-time partners, but only between multiple short-time clients. “Sugaring” arrangement can immediately go out of hand, with compromising pictures of the “sugar-baby” being used to blackmail her, at the same time that the “sugar-daddy” could also be blackmailed and subject to extortion by shady characters related to the sugar-dating sites.

 

Dear comrade,

 

According to official data, child rape and sexual abuse are rampant in our country, which is a global hot spot for online child abuse. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) cites a government-backed nationwide study which showed that one in five children aged 13 to 17 experienced sexual violence, while one in 25 were raped during childhood. But prosecuting adult perpetrators, in rape cases involving child victims as young as 12 years old, has been difficult because they can argue that sex was allegedly “consensual”.

 

The Philippines has one of the lowest ages of sexual consent in the world, allowing adults to legally have sex with children as young as 12 years old. In most countries, this would be statutory rape, a non-bailable criminal offense. Child rights activists in our country have lobbied for decades to increase the age of consent --- enshrined in the penal code since 1930 during the US colonial period --- but faced resistance from a “culture of patriarchy” in a country where abortion and divorce are also illegal. Fortunately, the Philippine Congress (parliament) is now set to raise the age of consent to 16 years old. The proposed bill would automatically make it illegal to have sex with someone below 16 years old, although young couples close in age may be exempt from the recommended punishment of lifetime imprisonment.

 

But more needs to be done to combat sexual violence against young girls, including ferreting out predators on facebook and other online platforms where they usually meet their boyfriends. Also, all children should have access to age-appropriate sex education from an early age, as well as information and services to prevent sexually-transmitted diseases, and to avoid pregnancy.

 

Pregnancy among very young adolescents is now a national and social emergency. One out of every 10 pregnancies in the Philippines involve teenage mothers. In 2019, 62,510 Filipino adolescents became young mothers, and this number is expected to rise by up to 30% in pandemic year 2020 due to barriers to services (absence or lack of family planning services) and increase in sexual violence resulting from the long lockdown. Around 2 million mothers who do not want to have any more children, or who want to space their pregnancies, did not receive family planning information, and permanent or temporary contraception services, due to the lockdown.

 

Childbirth among adolescents have very serious and lasting impacts on the young mothers, their babies and their families. The World Health Organization reports that, globally, the leading causes of death among girls aged 15 to 19 are complications related to pregnancy and childbirth. A young mother's education usually ends with her first pregnancy, thus diminishing her job prospects and total lifetime earnings. She and her family become more vulnerable to poverty and exclusion, and her health and that of her baby often suffer. This has an impact on the economy, with the loss of otherwise productive income-generating young people from the labor force. Babies born to adolescent mothers usually suffer low birth weights, poor health throughout childhood, and may be doomed to live out a vicious cycle of poverty. Teenage pregnancy takes away the future of our young girls and prevents them from reaching their full potential.

 

Dear comrade,

 

The problems of women and children in the Philippines, as well as of the whole working masses of our people, are systemic social problems of poverty rooted on our neo-colonial capitalist system. It is a system under the control of the imperialists and their local oligarchic allies –- an economy that is prevented from industrializing independently and generating widespread employment ; a political set-up which perpetuates obeisance to oligarchic dictates and the rule of megalomaniacal dynasties at all levels ; a culture which apes western educational values and is dependent on imperialist mass media ; and a military which is indirectly under the control of the Pentagon.

 

The solution of women's problems lies with, and can only be a part of, our national liberation from imperialism and from the anti-worker and anti-people directions of our neo-colonial government. The solution of women's problems and all the social ills of the masses of our people lies in our struggle for the attainment of people's democracy and socialism in our country.

 

Dear comrade,

 

We wish every success to your International Women's Day Rally in Tokyo this coming March 6. It is a great pleasure for us to learn that your rally will pay particular attention to the anti-worker and anti-people policies of Japanese imperialism represented now by the current Suga Yoshihide regime which is squandering public resources to strengthen the business oligarchy, instead of helping the working peoples victimized by the capitalist response to the pandemic.

 

We salute your struggle against the construction of the US naval base in Henoko, and against the war-mongering military program of the Suga regime. We support your call for peace, for the expansion of women's rights, and for greater solidarity with the worldwide movement for an end to the US imperialist blockade and sanctions against Cuba, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and other countries which are similarly fighting for socialism.

 

Long live international solidarity against imperialism, for peace and socialism !

 

With communist greetings,

 

ANTONIO E. PARIS

General Secretary