This year’s national women’s month celebration may have come to an end but the call for concrete, sustainable, and inclusive actions towards gender equality continues. The month-long celebration with the theme, “Juana Laban sa Pandemya: Kaya!”, highlighted the resiliency of Juanas and their ability to thrive in these challenging times brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.
In these difficult times, we need empowered Juanas who have the ability to determine their own choices and exercise their right to influence social change for themselves and others. As the nation focused on the importance of gender-equality emphasizing women empowerment this March, we are reminded that women or the Juanas play significant roles not only in the battle against COVID-19 but in building a better society through good nutrition. Women empowerment is a pathway to improving child nutrition.
Empowered women are able to make decisions about household income and how much to allocate to child health and nutrition, make healthy food choices for the family, take care of themselves especially during pregnancy so that they can give birth to healthy infants, have better infant and young children feeding practices, and have better health seeking behavior, among others. We need empowered Juanas in improving child nutrition and in rearing the future of our nation – our children. Empowered Juanas contribute to the health and productivity of their families and communities creating a positive ripple effect.
The Philippine Plan of Action or PPAN which is the country’s framework for nutrition improvement, targets mothers particularly pregnant and lactating women and those with children below 2 years old for its nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive programs to help them achieve good nutrition for themselves and for their children.
The government and private sector need to work together to ensure that Juanas’ rights to health and nutrition are upheld and that they are given access to gender-responsive programs and services. Let’s work together in empowering the Juanas of today for our country's future.
Written by: NPC Milagros Elisa V. Federizo
References:
- https://pcw.gov.ph/2021-national-womens-month/
- https://scalingupnutrition.org/news/new-report-womens-empowerment-and-nutrition/
- Global Issues: Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment accessed through https://www.peacecorps.gov/educators/resources/global-issues-gender-equality-and-womens-empowerment/
- https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/2009/08/14/republic-act-no-9710/
