Statement on International Working Women’s Day
March 8, 2025
Women development workers are at the frontlines tackling hunger, health, education, livelihood and all other pressing socioeconomic issues. Yet the efforts they lead and crucial roles they play in their communities face continuing repression — and they are also on the frontlines of pushing back against growing restrictions on civic space and democratic participation.
Women also overwhelmingly bear the burden of caring for children, elderly and income-earners in the home. This work is essential for the functioning of the economy but is unpaid and unrecognized, as well limits their ability to participate in formal employment. Because of this, barely half of women 15 years old and over (53%) are able to join the labor force compared to three-fourths of men 15 years old and over (75%), according to the government’s latest labor force survey for January 2025. If the labor force participation rates of women and men were the same, there would be 8.7 million more women in the labor force.
In their Ulat Lila 2025, the Center for Women’s Resources (CWR) reports that women face particular challenges from the lack of genuine land reform, reckless agricultural liberalization and land use conversion, and worsening development aggression and militarization. Human rights group Karapatan estimates around 3.9 million cases of civil and political rights violation between July 2022 and December 2024. Around 157 out of 762 political prisoners are women.
Activists, human rights defenders, development workers and NGO workers also suffer increasing legal attacks under the Anti-Terrorism Law and Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act. For instance, a report by the National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL) and the Council for People’s Development and Governance (CPDG) shows how national anti-money laundering (AML) and countering the financing of terrorism (CFT) strategies are used against civil society organizations on the basis of spurious allegations by supposed rebel returnees.
These attacks besmirch the positive role of CSOs in development and hinders their work in communities, most of which are women-led. This includes the case of Ms. Jazmin Jerusalem, the Executive Director of the multi-awarded Leyte Center for Development (LCDe) for its work delivering disaster assistance to marginalized communities in Leyte and Samar and for promoting climate resilient cities, who has been charged with trumped-up terrorist financing cases.
Despite the continuous harassment and attacks, CSOs continue to push back against repression and the shrinking of civic spaces. We call on every individual and organizations to stand for the rights of women, development workers, human rights defenders, persevering in safeguarding our civil and political rights.
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