04 November 2013 – Celebrating the “National Consciousness Day on Violence Against Women (VAW)” one month in advance, the Philippine Embassy in Paris, in cooperation with the Babaylan Association, organized on October 20 the first seminar to explore the various situations of violence faced by Filipina migrants in France.

Led by Ambassador Cristina G. Ortega, the seminar was attended by 45 women from various associations in France.

To show the Embassy’s commitment to fight VAW, Ambassador Ortega announced the establishment of a VAW desk in the Embassy, with Vice Consul Rapunzel Acop and Atty. Eunika Lesli Leyva-Tiongco, as Gender and Development (GAD) focal and alternate focal points.

The role of this desk, just like VAW desks in all barangays in the Philippines, is to receive victims of VAW, respecting the rules on confidentiality; work in partnership with associations in France where the victims can be oriented for psychological or medical help; maintain a database of these cases and report them to Manila; and advise the women on their possible courses of action under French law.

In response to this initiative, over a dozen members from various associations decided to form a VAW Working Group in order to work in conjunction with the VAW desk by studying possible solutions to the problems of VAW. END