ELA in English
At ELA we work to change the reality of women, to influence from Argentina throughout the region with a focus on human rights, gender and access to justice. We believe that there is a legal framework, with different degrees of evolution in the region that, although it requires improvements, is present to protect the rights of women throughout Latin America. However, the mechanisms to guarantee that these rights are effective are not sufficient for multiple reasons such as the lack of access to justice, inefficient public policies, the lack of public information and coordination mechanisms that fail in action between the existing institutions.
Our achievements
We have raised our voice and managed to be heard in the streets, social networks, our jobs, homes, with family and friends. We are aware of the strength of our message, that it is inclusive and that longs for a more just society for those who inhabit this planet.

We are pioneers in investigations regarding topics such as access to justice, violence and participation, and we had different milestones over the years. We built the Women's Participation Index (IPM, by its acronym in Spanish) for Argentina, published in the first study of Sex and Power in 2011, which was replicated in 2020 to find that, in global terms, the improvement in the participation of women in spaces of power was minimal. We carried out the first budget and gender studies in Argentina and the first survey on the prevalence and incidence of violence against women in Argentina in 2015 in the City of Buenos Aires, which was a pioneer in promoting the construction of an evidence-based policy.

We also developed the first empirical research on political violence against women in Argentina in 2018, which contributed to the modification of Law 26,485 on comprehensive protection to prevent, punish, and eradicate violence against women.
The next conquest
We believe that there is a key point to unleash the potential of women, promote the development of their autonomy and improve the present and future quality of their lives: their role in the care ecosystem.

Care must cease to be an individual problem for women to become a right of citizenship, a social co-responsibility and an obligation of the State. The current care economy is the fabric that enables the development of a society, but today it is at the expense of women's freedom and development. If we do not recognize the care economy, development is more difficult and improbable, and unfair for women and other vulnerable groups such as the elderly, people with disabilities and children.

Without care there is no social reproduction and today care is not produced without a strong inequitable burden on women. This is the moment to consider how we can make the care ecosystem become more just, equal and a producer of wealth.
Work areas
Thanks to research evidence, our experiences, and mainly from listening to other women, we know that the population is exposed to high rates of gender violence (from domestic to political violence, among others), to structural barriers to employment (including the wage gap, the segregation of sectors and job positions, and high levels of informality), to underrepresentation in public and decision-making positions, to being responsible for a greater hourly load of unpaid work and for their voice to be visibly silenced when individual injustices are denounced.

That is why, in ELA we work to change the reality of women in four areas that we consider are central for concrete changes to take place in society and for an improvement in the quality of life of women and girls in Argentina and the region.
Trabajo y cuidados

Work and care

At ELA we aspire for care to be socially organized in a fairer and more equitable way. That's why we work to:

  • Incorporate a gender perspective into public standards and policies on care, understanding care as a human right.
  • Influence the public agenda on care so that the needs of women, girls and adolescents in all their diversity are taken into account.
  • Raise awareness and engage key actors - decision makers, companies, unions and families - to promote co-responsibility in care tasks and public conversations regarding discrimination and gender gaps in the labor market.
  • Investing in care and closing gender gaps is investing in social welfare and betting on truly inclusive development.
Violencia de género

Gender based violence

At ELA we aspire to eradicate the multiple forms of gender-based violence and we work to:

  • Put the less known types of violence on the public agenda.
  • Impulse the commitment of different actors, such as companies and unions, to the eradication of violence.
  • Promote comprehensive and sustained state responses.
  • Guarantee access to justice in case of violence.
Participación social y política

Social and political violence

At ELA we aspire to the free exercise of the right to political and social participation of women and diversities without gender discrimination. That's why we work to:

  • Make visible the presence of women and diversities from an intersectional perspective in positions of political and social power.
  • Raise awareness about the obstacles that limit the participation of women and diversities in decision-making places so that they are recognized and addressed.
  • Promote the plurality of voices as a way to strengthen the legitimacy of the institutions of democracy.
Derechos sexuales y reproductivos

Sexual and reproductive rights

At ELA we aspire for the access to reproductive rights to be guaranteed for women in all their diversity. That's why we work to:

  • Promote effective state responses for the full enjoyment of reproductive rights.
  • Amplify the presence of women's reproductive rights on the public agenda at national and/or regional level.
  • Avoid regulatory setbacks in matters of reproductive rights.
  • Promote access to justice for people facing barriers in the exercise of their reproductive rights.
Our publications