Ombudsman urges public to report gender-related complaints

TACLOBAN CITY, July 20 (PNA) -- The Office of the Ombudsman has encouraged all residents in Eastern Visayas to visit their office and file complaints on gender matters involving government official.

Assistant Ombudsman and Gender and Development Chairperson Jennnifer Jardin Manalili said during the launching of Gender Information Desk (GID) Tuesday afternoon that even male victims of abuses are welcomed file their complaints at the desk.

“Gender is not only about women, but for all of us. Many incidents are happening, but if it’s not reported or if they don’t have venue to report it, we will not know it. This is our way of telling them to come out and tell us what is really going on, if there are really cases of harassment against women, children and men,” Manalili said.

Gender issues have been stereotyped that it only focuses on women, but this should be broken, according to Manalili.

“This is a product of our culture orientation since we were children because of stereotyping. So we are here to teach values. Our difference is because of nature and other than that, we are all the same, we all need to grow our full potential,” she explained.

Manalili clarified that complaints that will be received by the desk will not only focus on sexual abuses, but also on discriminatory laws against men and women and complaints on inequality.

“If it falls under our jurisdiction, then we will take action on it, but if they want other interventions to their complaints, we will look at ways of how we can help them,” she added.

The official added that with the launching of GID, they can now gather accurate statistics on complaints regarding gender matter and check if there is an increase or decrease of cases every year. (PNA)
BNB/SQM/ROEL T. AMAZONA/EGR