“We hope to share our thoughts on issues on women and gender through an intergenerational perspective and walk together with our sisters and allies.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: Mother and daughter June and Dawn Castro make their column debut in this issue. June, a Mass Communications graduate, is a former councilor of Silay City. She has been a Gender and Development practitioner for 30 years now. Dawn holds a bachelor’s degree in Communication and Media Studies and an MA in Women and Development. She works in the field of civic engagement with a focus on gender equality and youth activism.
ALL ISSUES ARE WOMEN’S ISSUES – This was declared in the Nairobi Forward Looking Strategies for the Year 2000 during the 3rd World Conference on Women in 1985.
Ten years later, as a staff of the Development Through Active Women Networking Foundation and a member of PILIPINA, I went on my first trip abroad to attend the NGO Forum on Women, a parallel activity of the 4th World Conference on Women, held in Beijing, China.
In the 1995 world conference, 189 governments approved the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action which the United Nations considered as the most progressive blueprint for advancing women’s rights.
It outlined 12 critical areas of concerns that government and civil society should work on including women and poverty, education, health, violence against women, armed conflict, the economy, decision-making, institutional mechanisms, human rights, women and media, the environment and the girl-child.
The BPfA was adopted shortly after my only daughter, whom I named after DAWN Foundation, turned 1 year old.
I, together with my co-NGO Forum participants from Bacolod, lawyer Andrea Lizares-Si and Celia Flor, used the BPfA as basis of our projects on local governance, transformational leadership/politics, violence-free homes and communities, gender sensitivity trainings, and later adolescent reproductive health and sexuality, among others. Dawn grew up assisting in some of our trainings.
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2020 marks the 25th year of the BPfA. Last year, I joined a regional NGO Caucus on Beijing+25 to discuss how women’s movements in Asia and the Pacific want to engage the review process.
As an advocacy officer of Women Engaged in Action 1325, a network of human rights, peace and women’s organizations, I co-authored the section on Women and Armed Conflict for the Philippine NGO Beijing +25 report on what the Philippine government has or has not accomplished vis-a-vis its obligations under the BPfA.
I felt honored to be part of these knowing that I was only a year old when the platform was established. It was an opportunity for young women like me to surface issues that have evolved over the years, some of which were not included in the BPfA such as misogyny, expanding women’s rights in the areas of mobility, autonomy, bodily integrity and the inclusion of LGBTQIA+ individuals, among others.
Revisiting the Platform for Action highlighted how some issues 25 years ago continue to perpetuate and have worsened over the years, for women and girls.
I believe my mother and I have come full circle. I am a member of PILIPINA National Council and also part of the Young Feminists Collective. My feminist journey has been greatly influenced by my mother. Surely, by naming me after DAWN Foundation, she expected nothing less.
With HERSTORY in Negros Weekly and negros now daily, we hope to share our thoughts on issues on women and gender through an intergenerational perspective and walk together with our sisters and allies. – NWI
