LABANAN ANG ABUSO, KARAHASAN, AT KATIWALIAN!
The 2025 International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women unfolds at a time when corruption and inequality continue to shape the daily realities of Filipino women, especially peasant and rural women. Billions in public funds meant for agriculture, health, disaster relief, and basic services are stolen through pork barrel schemes, ghost projects, rampant land-use conversion, and the abuse of power by political dynasties, bureaucrat capitalislt and US-Marcos regime.
As women struggle to feed their families amid rising prices, climate disasters, and lack of government support, landlords, corrupt officials, and foreign corporations continue to profit from our land and labor. This systematic theft and neglect is a form of violence that deepens hunger and traps women in cycles of poverty and exploitation.
In many rural areas, corruption is reinforced by militarization. Across Mindanao, Negros, Bicol, Eastern Visayas, and the Cordilleras, heavy military presence has become prominent under the guise of “security” and “development.” Peasant women experience harassment, surveillance, illegal searches, red-tagging, forced surrenders, and threats for speaking out against land grabbing, destructive mining, and exploitative plantations. Communities are displaced, farms are converted, and women and children are exposed to psychological, physical, and sexual violence.
On this IDEVAW, AMIHAN stands with women around the world in the call to rise against corruption and fascism. We affirm that ending violence against women requires ending feudal land relations, imperialist exploitation, political dynasties, and the culture of impunity that protects abusers in power.
We demand genuine agrarian reform, support for agriculture, the return of stolen public funds to social services, and the immediate demilitarization of rural communities. In our collective resistance, we affirm that peasant women are not merely victims of this crisis but its fiercest challengers in our struggle for land, dignity, justice, and genuine freedom.
