Highlights of 2016 Take Back the Tech! Philippines Campaign

18 Days of Activism against Gender-based violence

In the Philippines, the 18-day campaign to end violence against women is from November 25, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, to December 12, International Day against Trafficking. The campaign calls on everyone to take take action to end violence against women and girls everywhere and to raise awareness that VAW is a public issue of national concern.

The following marked the local actions undertaken by FMA for the Take Back the Tech! campaign:

• To mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, women with painted faces and bodies performed a warrior dance on November 25, 2016 in Timog Avenue, Quezon City (See the actual video footage here http://bit.ly/2kvW10M). Led by the World March of Women (WMW), women from different women’s and human rights organizations, including FMA, filled the streets around the World Scout Jamboree Circle, to strongly denounce the threats and acts violence committed by the State as a articulated by Administration’s war on drugs, allowing a hero’s burial for the late President Marcos, advocating the re-imposition of the death penalty and lowering the age of criminal responsibility of juveniles. Women leaders likewise strongly condemned the character assassination and misogynistic attacks against those who criticize the administration. Women human rights defenders have reported being harassed and abused online as a result of their being vocal about expressing their views.

• Participation in the protest action against the burial of the late President Marcos on November 30, which is also National Heroes’ day in the Philippines. FMA joined the World March of Women in performing the warrior dance drawing strengths from women ancestors who have resisted as a people against any forms of violence against women. They also underscored that the recent days after the Marcos burial at the heroes’ cemetery showed that silenced and spread of lies was countered by truthful narratives, calls for humane justice and reason for human rights defenders and coming especially from young people in protest actions. See video footage here http://bit.ly/2kvBfue; http://bit.ly/2k6jmp7; photos: http://bit.ly/2k6gc4K;http://bit.ly/2kvRlEl; http://bit.ly/2k6nBBa.

• FMA created an event page (see http://bit.ly/2jUnKFc.) to encourage everyone to join the TBTT campaign. A total of 872Facebook users were reached the page event and garnered a total of 499 responses. FMA also shared articles and informative materials like infographics, posters and photos, that highlight calls to end violence against women.

• In partnership with the Internet Society-Philippines Chapter, FMA held a forum entitled “Internet Rights and Principles: Emerging Policy, Shifting Landscape” on November 28. The said forum was a venue to convene civil society, tech communities, human rights advocates, academe and other stakeholders to discuss the current state of Philippine internet under the new administration and its implications to human rights. See more details at http://bit.ly/2k1Gd6g; photos http://bit.ly/2lpIxRJ.

• To celebrate 10 years of the Take Back the Tech! campaign, FMA came up with eight (8) posters depicting the different local activities the organization has organized to encourage women and girls to take action against online gender based violence. These posters were exhibited during the Nov. 28 activity of FMA with ISOC-PH. See  posters at http://bit.ly/2kvRsj3and http://bit.ly/2k3uItY.

• Aside from mounting the poster exhibit, we also popularized the 2016 campaign banner on our Facebook event page. To ensure that our campaign becomes topic of conversation, we posted infographics of 160 cases that were reported in our Take Back the Tech!Philippines online mapping (See ph.tbtt.apc.org/mapit). We used campaign hashtag #takebackthetech in all our posts. Please refer to a separate attached document about the key metrics related to the campaign.

• On November 19, in partnership with WeDpro, a non-government organization that assists to empower individuals in a collective formation, FMA conducted a basic digital security and online safety to seven (7) women from various sectors. The purpose of the training was to enhance their capacities in the usage of social media, including the online security measures on countering technology-related violence. The activity was conducted as a response to the expressed need of WHRDs barraged these women with annoying to threatening messages and posts. FMA gave emphasis on the importance of building support groups to provide a safe space among the women’s groups and individuals and empower them to build resilience through increased knowledge of available support, help-seeking, and develop of positive coping strategies and skills needed. Among the women advocates who joined the training were representatives from Center for Migrants Advocacy, WeDpro, WomanHealth, Anti-Sexual Harassment Officer of University of the Philippines, and Bantay Bata. See photo here http://bit.ly/2lqC3RG.

• Another milestone of the 18-days campaign of activism against gender-based violence was FMA’s invitation to the first Senate Public Hearing on the Tres Maria bills – Anti-Rape bill, the Anti-Sexual Harassment Bill, and the Gender-Based Electronic Violence on Women bill. This conducted by the Senate Committee on Women and was held on December 12. FMA gave a statement on what online gender-based violence is and how it affects women. FMA likewise shared the work it has done with APC on the issue of technology-related VAW and provided the Committee with statistics based on the 160 cases reported in the online map. The Committee Chair acknowledged the contribution of FMA to the public hearing and invited the organization to be part of the technical working group to be formed after the deliberation of the said bills. Aside from FMA, the other resource persons for the said hearing included representatives from the Philippine Commission on Women, National Bureau of Investigation-Cybercrime Division, Department of Information and Communications Technology, Philippine National Police-AntiCybercrime Group, Department of Justice and National Privacy Commission. Senators Gatchalian and Lacson were also present during the said public hearing.See more details here http://bit.ly/2k3w7AG and http://bit.ly/2jhQSnW.###