ELA - Latin American Justice and Gender Think Tank (Equipo Latinoamericano de Justicia y Género)
We promote the exercise of women’s rights and gender equality through public policies and the law.
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Acceso a la justicia como garantía de igualdad (Access to Justice to Guarantee Equality)
Violence against women
Violence against women, or gender based violence, is a form of discrimination preventing women, in equal conditions to men, from exercising the rights and freedoms set within the framework of human rights. This violence is the result of asymmetric power relations between men and women and they appear both within the family, the community and the State altogether. That is to say, this form of violence in its different expressions, affects people’s lives at all socioeconomic levels, both in the public and private environments. It is a phenomenon many times justified to protect the patriarchal order discouraging women’s involvement in all environments of society. Only recently has the government recognized gender violence as being a public policy affair with important consequences in the social and economic areas, which has even represented a survival problem for women and a serious obstacle for the consolidation of democracy and development.
In short, gender violence, as a synonym of violence against women, is defined as any act of coercion based on gender and resulting in physical, sexual, psychological, political, social and economic damage for women in all stages of their life cycle. It includes the coercion or arbitrary deprivation of freedom or the threat of said acts and it applies both to the private and public scenarios. It specifically refers to physical, sexual, psychological, social and/or economic violence that:
• Occurs within the family: it includes maltreatment, the exploitation of labour force, marital rape, girls’ sexual abuse, non-marital rape, forced pregnancy, the limitation of the exercise of political rights and opportunities of education and professional and economic development, and all type of traditional habits and practices preventing women from enjoying human rights.
• Occurs within the community: it includes rape and sexual abuse, harassment and sexual intimidation at the place of work, schools, academic institutions, health services or at any other public place, forced prostitution, control over reproductive life, exercised both by individuals and by civil or state-dependant organizations.
• Is allowed by the State, wherever it occurs, including direct or indirect forms of discrimination in laws, policies, plans, programs, projects or services.