Julia Muriel Dominzain: How Is Gender-Based Violence in Latin America Measured? Julia Muriel Dominzain - CIP Americas
go to original November 22, 2016

Last June, Gigi Scoles, director of human rights at the non-profit organization Vital Voices, spoke on growing protests against gender violence in Latin America (CCTV America)

Note: On Oct. 19 throughout Latin America, people demonstrated against violence against women. This call was born in Argentina after the killing of Lucia Perez, 16, who was raped and murdered on October 8. In this article, the Americas Program analyzes the data that only partially shed light on the true dimensions of the problem on the continent.

“If my life does not matter, produce without me.” With that slogan was born, from Argentina, the call for the first national woman’s strike. The idea quickly spread to several Latin American countries, and women from Honduras, Mexico, Chile, Bolivia, Uruguay, among others joined the call to mobilize.

While in recent years gender-based violence began to occupy more space in the public agenda, there are still many difficulties to overcome – as stated in the Convention of Belém do Pará in 1994– “prevent, punish and eradicate all forms of violence against women.” Including the lack of uniform data: How is gender-based violence in Latin America measured?

There is still no common criteria of how to measure the phenomenon and each country has distinct ways of conceiving of and registering gender-based violence. In addition, in each region the agency responsible for sharing the information is different. The Gender Equality Observatory of Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL), gathers the main data of the region in each of its annual reports. The entity was created after the tenth Regional Conference on Women of Latin America and the Caribbean (Ecuador, 2007).

In the results, you can see the diversity of institutions: in Costa Rica data is obtained from the Statistics Department of Judicial Power Planning; in Ecuador they use those of the Ministry of the Interior. In El Salvador, the Attorney General’s Office is responsible; in Guatemala, the Public Ministry. In Honduras, it’s up to the University Institute of Democracy, Peace and Security, the National Autonomous University of Honduras and the Observatory of Violent Deaths of Women and femicide. In Nicaragua the Women’s Commissariat of the National Police provides the information, in Paraguay the National Police and the Ministry of Women provide it. In Uruguay, the Violence and Criminality Observatory of the Ministry of the Interior, the Public Ministry in Peru and in Argentina, the Supreme Court of National Justice.

But if we look inside of the countries, we find more than one institution measuring the data at a time. And it is not uncommon to find disagreements between government agencies and civil society organizations. The case of Argentina is graphic: although late last year the Supreme Court of National Justice presented the National Register of Femicide, up until then, the most reliable data came from the hands of a civilian organization. From the Femicide Observatory, Marisel Adriana Zambrano, La Casa del Encuentro coordinator, were engaged in monitoring the media to record all cases that qualify as femicide. According to them, from 2008 to 2015, there were 2,094 femicides, leaving 2,518 daughters and sons motherless.

Read the rest at CIP Americas

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