ILOILO CITY: The Department of Social Welfare and Development has noted the downtrend of abusive cases against women and children who sought refuge at Regional Center for Women (RCW) in New Lucena province, Iloilo City.

Haydee Canilla, Center for Women officer-in-charge reported that a total of 187 cases against women and their dependents are recorded at the center. These cases were reported as against 21 women and 22 dependents in 2009, 21 women and 23 dependents in 2010, 22 women and 30 dependents in 2011, and 19 women and 29 dependents in 2012.

Already discharged were 113 cases women and their dependents and as of the present, there are still 49 inmates composed of women and their minor children at the center undergoing rehabilitation and other support services.

The center caters to women and children who were victims of rape, incest, involuntary prostitution, trafficking in person, illegal recruitment, domestic violence and abandonment.

The substitute home care for women in especially difficult circumstances project of Social Welfare department aims to provide direct interventions to women victims of gender-based violence or those vulnerable to abuses and exploitation whose ages are from 18 to 59 years old.

In the 2012 report, there are nine women and 13 dependents who are victims of physical abuse, five women and 14 children who are emotionally abused, four women as rape victims, two dependents for incest and a woman as strandee or neglected.

Launched in May 19, 2000 as a project of the Congressional Spouses Foundation in Iloilo City in cooperation with the Social Welfare department, the RCW houses women and their children and help them rebuild their lives.

Not eligible for admission at the center are women referred by the regional trial courts with pending or on-going trial of cases in court, women with severe infectious diseases prejudicial to other wards, women manifesting or suffering from psychotic behavior, bizarre perception and other categories of personality disorder, victims of gender-based violence who are pregnant beyond seven months and must be referred to a medical institution or other non-government organizations for appropriate care and an pregnant women abandoned by their boyfriends who only wanted to deliver with out the knowledge of their family.