Gender Sensitivity in the Family Courts

Published by The Asia Foundation, U.P. Center for Women’s Studies and the U.P. Center for Women’s Studies Foundation, Inc., Gender Sensitivity in the Family Courts by Mryna Feliciano, et al, shows enough evidence that gender bias is a problem in the Philippine Judiciary, especially in the Family Courts. There is therefore a pressing need for gender sensitivity in the Family Courts to ensure access to justice to both women and men, especially poor women. In the book, gender bias is defined as “behavior or decision-making of participants in the justice system that is based on, or reveals a) stereotyping attitudes about the nature and roles of women; b) cultural perceptions of their relative worth; and c) myths and misconceptions about the social and economic realities encountered by both sexes.

Studies show that stereotyping of roles of women and men puts women at a disadvantage because the male experience are male-centered values are then used as standards or norms, thus resulting to discriminatory and insensitive conduct of judges, prosecutors, lawyers and court personnel.

Before this book, Feliciano, et al, wrote Gender Sensitivity in the Court System (2002) where they cite that gender bias can be seen in the following situations: a) difficulty of getting justice fore female victims of sexual abuse and related crimes; b) in the stages of criminal action where women victims are discouraged from filing complaints and pursuing their cases in court, and c) in the lack of sensitivity of law enforcers, social workers, lawyers and judges to the predicament of female victims. With gender bias in the courts, the justice system cannot be expected to render fair and impartial decisions. In their survey of 95 judges, social workers and lawyers nationwide, both male and female judges identified that female witnesses face sexist remarks, sexist jokes and discriminatory treatment. Female judges said that, aside from these, female witnesses encounter intimidation, suggestive comments, comments on personal appearance, their clothing, and their bodies. Even female lawyers are not spared from discrimination. Female prosecutors said that female lawyers also encounter sexist remarks and jokes, intimidations, comments on their personal appearance, their clothing, their bodies, and suggestive comments.

What is significant in the study is that both male and female judges, lawyers and court personnel share many common sexist as well as non-sexist beliefs and attitudes. If these sexist and discriminatory beliefs and attitudes are not eradicated, women will continue to have difficulty in attaining justice. These erroneous beliefs and attitudes are obstacles to gender-responsiveness, and every lawyer, judge and court personnel must be aware of this problem and must change their beliefs and behavior.

The Supreme Court has a Committee on Gender Responsive Justice that is tasked to ensure the efficiency of the five-year Gender and Development Plan for the Judiciary. Trainings of Family Court judges and personnel are ongoing, but this study by Feliciano et al shows that insensitivity to gender continues to be a problem.

Part of their recommendations is for civil society groups to have a “court watch” or “gender watch” in their provinces, so that the effectiveness of Family Courts can be monitored. Family Court judges have a very important role in our communities. They preside over cases of violence against women and children, cases involving children including incest rape, and other cases involving the family. It is important that, aside from knowing the law, these judges must have adequate training on gender sensitivity, and must be examples of proper decorum and respectability in and outside of their courts.

The philanderers, incompetents, drunkards and ill-mannered should not be judges, especially of Family Courts. Thus, Feliciano et al correctly recommend that gender sensitivity should be included in the criteria for selection of Family Court judges.

Eradicating gender bias and discrimination will take some time and educating our judges, lawyers and court personnel on gender sensitivity may be an endless task. But Feliciano’s book should be compulsory reading for all on any given day.*

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 27th, 2005 at 2:34 pm and is filed under Women's Rights, Gender and Law, Book Projects. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.