‘Rape every 62 minutes to continue with or without death penalty’

“With or without death penalty, rape of a woman or child every 62 minutes will continue.”

This is what the Center for Women’s Resources (CWR), a 35-year research and training institution for women, said on Tuesday after the latest data of the Philippine National Police Women’s Desk (PNP-WCPC) revealed an additional 7,037 rape cases from January to October 2016.

This means that a woman or child is raped every 62 minutes, according to CWR.

CWR said that for a decade (from 2005 to 2014), the number of recorded rape cases totaled to 52,453, including incestous and attempted rape, in which 75% of were children.

“The execution of a convicted rapist in 1999 did not stop abusers from raping women and girls. During that same year, 2,842 children were reportedly victims of rape,” CWR executive director Jojo Guan said in a statement.

“Given a corrupt system and a culture of impunity where the rich and the powerful can go scot-free, death penalty will always be a contentious method to curb criminality in the country,” she added.

House Majority Leader Rodolfo Fariñas last week said that the committee on rules which he chairs will field House Bill 4727 to the plenary for third and final reading approval this Tuesday.

READ: Death penalty bill up for final House approval next week

Guan said that women from indigent communities face more violence like rape because their condition makes them vulnerable to sexual exploitation and abuses.

“With lack of economic resources, they could not afford the expensive, long, and tedious judicial process. Thus, justice remains elusive to the marginalized victims,” she said.

She said that the bill on reimposition of the death penalty will only further violate women’s rights and that there is a “great possibility that this will be used as an additional instrument to curb political dissent and punish human rights activists.”

“As it is, there are still more than 30 women political detainees who are languishing in jail with trumped up charges. Another criminal charge of drugs can be fabricated against them,” Guan said.

“Death penalty, in the present system, will only be beneficial to the powers-that-be. Social justice is denied as long as a quarter of our country’s riches only belong to a few elite,” she added. RAM/rga