A pleasant good morning to everyone.

I would like to welcome Ms. Maria Santos Pais, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General on Violence against Children, Dr. Lara Fergus, an Expert Advisor on Service Delivery for Ending Violence against Women Section of UN WOMEN. We also have Mr. Vijaya Raman of UNICEF and Ms. Indira Jaising, a CEDAW Expert (i.e.Committee on the Elimination and Discrimination against Women). They are our friends and resource persons who have come from different parts of the region and of the other side of the world who’ve travelled quite a distance and still adjusting with our day and night.

I would like to express my gratitude for the invitation and the opportunity given to our Government to host this event. It is an honor to be here and to welcome our distinguished delegations from ASEAN member states - the colleagues from different governments who are working in the service for your own citizens. I welcome too the representatives or your Excellencies from the diplomatic corps and to everyone who is committed to ending violence against women and children.

We also offer gratitude in working with UN organizations – specifically the UN Women and UNICEF in funding this activity. The presence of fellow workers and advocates for women rights and children rights from the civil society organizations and NGOs - the Regional CSOs and the Local CSOs, the Philippine Commission on Women, WAGI and the Office of the Undersecretary and Staff for Policy and Programs Group of Department of Social Welfare and Development who have working together with the rest of other organizations I mentioned to get us where we are today.

In the Philippines, as you probably know in your own countries, we have stories that moved us to tears, to anger, and to action -- stories that pushed us to strengthen our commitment to the protection and promotion of the rights of women and children. One of the more recent stories that I’d like to share is that at the autonomous region of Muslim Mindanao, a 16-year old girl experience frequent beatings and economic deprivation from the very people who should be a source of care – her parents. She was reportedly being physically abused by her father and stepmother who beats her at least twice a week at the slightest provocation. She was also denied financial support for school which prompted her to quit. Her salaries from her work as a sales person were forcibly taken by her stepmother. When she could not bear the physical abuse, she decided to stay away from her father and stepmother and sought refuge at the house of her employer, who brought her case to the attention of the DSWD. Since then we have taken actions to protect her and to make the father and the stepmother accountable.

As many of these cases were presented to us, we ensure that it is in our mission to provide mechanisms for the protection and promotion of their rights. This girl embodies the two main concerns, a minor and a woman (a girl child). Again, as I’ve said, this not particular only to the Philippines, it happens to all our society. The DSWD has an extensive empirical research to popularize the Gender Responsive Case Management Approach which is one of the approaches we undertake in coordination with the Philippine Commission on Women and have worked closely with our uniformed men and women. This approach emphasizes a gendered lens in VAWC analysis and intervention. A pioneering effort standardized and piloted in this country. Violence against women and children can occur in various forms across the ASEAN Region.

It can occur even in the most sacred of places like one’s home. This can take many forms like physical/verbal/emotional, economic deprivation and abandonment, and be committed by any member of an immediate or extended family. In some instances it is exacerbated by cultural and social domains (i.e. poverty, discrimination, internal conflict, peace and order) even the traditional norms affect Government’s interventions to protect and promote the rights of women and children.

Recognizing the importance of the promotion and protection of the rights of women and children, at the global level it paved the way by two significant developments: the 2004 Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women and the 2010 Declaration on the Enhancement of Welfare and Development of ASEAN Women and Children, which our colleague had already earlier mentioned in her manifestation. The ASEAN member-states has brought attention of the highest level calling on citizens and government to act with real urgency. The Philippine Government’s commitment to this as well as the ASEAN region is to vigorously and actively pursue actions to end violence against women and children.

In the ASEAN Region, the establishment of the ASEAN Commission on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Women and Children is a timely synergy towards sustaining a strong commitment in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is our moral obligation and political responsibility to ensure that women and children are not at risk at all levels of the society, and at all forms of relationship.

Within the region, most have embedded in our different constitutional provisions and laws laws that protects the rights and welfare of women and children. As what our colleague from the United Nations mentioned, there are eight (8) countries in the ASEAN that has laws and provisions such as the Anti-Violence Against Women and Children Act of 2004 here in the Philippines, the Human Rights Law of Indonesia, the Revised Penal Code of Cambodia which penalizes offense of discrimination against women, to mention a few. The ASEAN countries have responded positively to combat human trafficking and pornography of women and children, including in the cyberspace.

Despite these efforts we also need to recognize the gaps in promoting and protecting the rights of women and children. We must collaborate with NGOs and Civil Society Organizations at the international, regional, and national level. We welcome and we want to continue to involve them from the very beginning of the process especially because they work at the grassroots level where most of these incidences actually occur. They facilitate and support direct involvement at the forefront especially at the communities and most importantly of women’s organizations and children’s organizations ensuring that they are participating at the very beginning on what I call the “heart-roots” of the problem. Many NGOs and CSOs have given and promoted positive programs and interventions such advocating human rights, capacity building, monitoring thru documentation, and encouraging policy development by building linkages and network between and amongst citizens, national government and local government. It will be good to have a NGO/CSO Advisory Panel as a result from this consultation meeting in order to engage them directly as partners as what we are doing at several levels in the ASEAN. If I may share, in our country, the Philippines particularly, NGOs and CSOs are serving as active-participatory members in our of our flagship programs the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT). They provide the monitoring and evaluation as well as the capacity building. At present, with the presence of NGOs and CSOs involvement, we can ensure that the 8,969,658 children will be able to attend schools and receive proper health care. It is our investment in the children’s education and in their health that will ensure that we break intergenerational poverty in the country.

It is also time that we look on what we have done collectively as individuals and as an organization for this gathering. Not only in the Region, but throughout the world, we must bring a unified message that violence against women and children is preventable and should be eliminated. Violence against them is a violation of human rights and obviously a desecration of their dignity.

Therefore, the consultation meeting is a good opportunity for all of us to review, recreate alliances, and to share best practices, and develop synergies with other ASEAN countries. Especially as we share our best practices, we can also gain more experience in law and policy development, mutli-sectoral governmental response and to have the competencies equipped for the monitoring of the implementation of laws. I acknowledge our collective efforts in fostering new relationships and sustainable actions plans.

I hope that this consultative meeting will enhance and strengthen the efforts to end violence against women and children, to continue empowering women and children, and investing in the future of a world that has no violence against anyone especially women and children. I hope that the arrangements here are to your satisfaction and any interest you may have in looking on what the Philippines has been doing, our Secretariat will be more than happy to facilitate and to provide you the support.

I wish you all the best.

Welcome remarks delivered by Secretary Corazon Juliano-Soliman during the Consultation of the ASEAN Commission on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Women and Children (ACWC) and UN Experts and UN Secretary General on Violence Against Children held at the Manila Intercontinental Hotel, Makati City on 16 January 2012