The fight for women’s rights continues

The scene is straight out of a telenovela, except that this time, it’s as real as the bruises an abusive husband leaves on the body of his suffering wife.

A pregnant wife reels from the blows her husband inflicts on her. She cringes when he approaches her, grabs her long, thick tresses and slowly cuts them, inch by painful inch. Soon, nothing is left but a patch of hair in the shape of a cross on her bald head. The gruesome reminder of violence taunts her everytime she looks at herself in the mirror.

It’s enough to send her hurrying to the Women’s Desk office at the GMA 7 compound. Here, staffers of the Q-11 show (Thursdays, 10 to 11 p.m.)  are feverishly answering calls that cry for help. There are the frantic calls from women helpless in the face of abuse from their unfeeling husbands and sometimes — “gasp“ teenage sons who mimic the father’s acts of violence.

The furious clicking of the computer stops; the note scribbling halts; the lively conversations are suspended. Someone offers the distraught women a chair and hears her story out. Soon, a team is dispatched to confirm the story, talk to the neighbors, etc. Not a second is lost. A woman’s life is at stake.

This scene is getting more and more common at the Women’s Desk office, and the pile of case reports is getting higher and higher. That’s why the show came up with the Draw the Line campaign, which aims to make women aware of their rights and protect them from abuse.

Thanks to the campaign, a series of self-defense clinics were held at St. Paul’s Manila, Makati Hope Christian School, La Consolacion College, University of Sto. Tomas (UST) , Sta. Isabel College, Sitel call center and Slimmer’s World. Monsour del Rosario taught Paulinians how to use common items like an umbrella, a pen and house keys to defend themselves. Artemio Mancol taught La Consolacion coeds the basics of judo. Mixed martial arts expert Alvin Aguilar went to UST and judo masters Richard Picar and Richard Tapel conducted clinics at Sta. Isabel College. Mancol and Mico Aytona, on the other hand, taught lady call center agents at Sitel how to defend themselves.

Ladies get answers to their nagging question: What if an attacker pokes a gun at me?

The campaign has borne fruit. Feedback shot up significantly. Walk-ins increased from 10 to 20 a week. Calls from people who wanted to help rose from 60 to 100 a week. Even the profile of the callers expanded. Before Draw the Line, these mostly came from the victims’ concerned relatives. After the campaign, the victims’ neighbors, they who used to dismiss the problem as just a domestic one, called or sent text messages.

“Women are stronger now and they can defend their rights,” host Rhea Santos says.

The first-time mother who gave birth to Juan Nicolas (her first-born by husband Carlo de Guzman) last Aug. 2, knows the self-defense clinics need follow-ups. A one-shot seminar on self-defense won’t solve the problem of women’s abuse the way a tsunami wipes out houses standing in its way.

Some women who rely on their men for their daily needs return to their abusive husbands.

But it’s a start. And it gives way to a second wave, which will run until March 2008; This time the scope is wider; the impact, hopefully bigger. Male celebrities and personalities are tapped to speak up on women and children’s rights. The list is made up of familiar faces like Christian Bautista, Eddie Garcia, Ivan Mayrina and Brad Turvey.

“It’s good to see men saying on TV that women should be loved and protected,” observes Rhea.

And while government offices exist to address this need, Rhea would rather have an independent Women’s Desk, devoid of political color. Yes, and the staff agree. They link up with government hospitals and introduce abused women to lawyers who can help them go to court. They can even stand as court witnesses in behalf of the women if they have to. 

But take out the political color, please. This effort has no hidden agenda. And it will never have one. It only wants to save women “mostly from the D-E classes” and their children from the clutches of abuse.

Rhea feels this pressing need more than ever, now that she’s a mom herself.

“It’s painful to see children being abused,” she relates. “It’s more painful to see them deprived of parental love.”

She tells women to earn their own keep so they won’t rely on their men solely for their subsistence. This way, they have more bargaining power. They can stand up to any form of abuse.

Still, a lot remains to be done. Given more funds, Women’s Desk wants to expand its Draw the Line campaign to cover public schools in the remotest of barangays.

But the seeds have been planted. And slowly, they are starting to bear fruit. Let’s hope they will continue to do so.