Making Violence Against Women (VAW) Desks functional

To bring the service closer to the women and their children, the creation and strengthening of VAW Desks in barangays is a priority. A VAW Desk is defined as “physical facility that addresses VAW cases in a manner that is gender sensitive.” VAW Desks should be present in each barangay since they are the first responders to a call for help by a victim. As of August 2018, DILG reports that 90 percent of the 42,036 barangays have already created their VAW Desks.

With most of the structures created, the focus now is to strengthen the functionality of existing VAW desks. An important element of functionality is making sure that barangay officials in charge of the desk are capacitated to gender sensitively handle a case, refer a victim for assistance and issue a BPO as needed.

In line with this, DILG issued MC No. 2017-114 dated August 30, 2017 re Guidelines in Monitoring the Functionality of Barangay VAW Desk. As of July 31, 2018, a total of 25, 435 or 60.51% of the 42,036 barangays have been assessed – of which, 4,293 (16.88%) were found to be ideal, 12, 878 (50.62%) were mature, 6,583 (25.92%) were progressive, and 1,673 were basic.