From:TheBahamasWeekly.com
Alejandra Mora Mora, President of the CIM, on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against women
By Inter-American Commission of Women (CIM)
Nov 25, 2014 - 2:32:36 PM
San José, Costa Rica (November 25th, 2014) - A message from Alejandra Mora Mora, President of The Inter-American Commission of Women, Minister of the Status of Women in Costa Rica:
In
1994, American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication
of Violence against Women (Belém do Pará Convention) first established
the right of women to a life free of violence, both in public and in
private. This historic agreement - until recently the only legal
instrument to specifically address the issue of violence against women-
has laid the ground work for the CIM over the past twenty years, as well
as the creation in 2004 of the Follow-up Mechanism to the Belém do Pará
Convention- MESECVI.
During the last 20 years of the Belém do Pará Convention, the Americas
has positioned itself in the region with the highest set of legal norms
regarding the right of women to live free from violence, with strong
integrated laws at national levels which in some cases have developed
beyond the provisions of the Convention. The adoption more laws on the
various manifestations of violence against women; femicide, rape and
sexual harassment, trafficking in women and girls, political, economic
and symbolic violence, among others - is a clear indicator of political
will and commitment to strengthen the response to this violence from a
human rights perspective.
Over the past 10 years The Follow-up Mechanism to the Belém do Pará
Convention (MESECVI) - and its Committee of Experts has been discussing
how and why violence against women occurs, how to prevent it and how it
is being sanctioned and legislated to protect women and girls in the
region. For the first time, the MESECVI is working based on a set of
‘progress indicators’ for measuring the implementation of the Belem do
Pará Convention, a process adopted by the Committee in 2013. This set of
indicators seeks to measure the States’ efforts to guarantee women live
a life free from violence through concrete tools to assess the status
of women’s rights in each State Party.
Broadly, the set of indicators has allowed us to identify significant
progress and persistent challenges in all countries of Latin America and
the Caribbean. Here is some promising information:
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Nine countries have comprehensive laws on violence against women;
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Twenty countries have national plans to address violence against women;
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There
has been specific progress in the provision of specialized services for
women victims of violence, particularly the establishment of shelters,
refuges and hotlines, the provision of free legal support and campaigns
have been launched to publicize the existence of these services ;
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There
have been more and more entities set up to receive complaints of
violence and protection measures have been strengthened, but we still
have a poor understanding of the actual impact of these measures on
women's access to justice; and
-
An
increasing number of States have conducted national surveys and have
better data on the rate and extent of violence against women.
However:
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As
regards access to justice, we still lack timely and reliable
information on: a) the number of complaints reported by women, b) the
outcome of these complaints from investigation, the presentation of a
case, judicial ruling, and sentencing;
-
We
lack reliable, generalizable and timely data on the number of women
victims of violence disaggregated by age, ethnicity and social
background, particularly if it has not been a case of domestic, family
or sexual violence. Of particular concern is the lack of data on women's
access to justice; and
-
Although
most countries have informed us on the allocation of budgetary
resources to combat violence against women, they have not yet specified
what percentage of public expenditure this represents, how it would be
managed, nor if it responds directly to the demand by women for
specialized health, justice, and other services.
The
above reveals that while there has been significant progress,
particularly in the areas of legislation and public policy, major
challenges remain to ensure the right of women to live free of violence,
particularly in the areas of access to justice, public budgets
allocated to prevention, treatment and sanctioning of violence, and
information about its scale and extent. In short, the gap between
standards and policies and the reality that women face in their daily
lives remains significant.
The commemoration of the twentieth anniversary of the adoption of the
Belém do Pará Convention coincides with the celebration of other
historic moments of key importance to gender equality and women's rights
in the region - including 20 years of Program of Action at the
International Conference on Population and Development (Cairo, 1994) and
the Declaration and Platform for Action of the Fourth World Conference
on Women (Beijing, 1995) and 15 years of the Millennium Development
Goals.
In the last 15 years eliminating violence against women has been cited
many times as the missing Millennium Development Goal- because violence
constitutes a barrier against the achievement of any of the other
development goals. In the field of international and hemispheric
cooperation, it is time to set out concrete commitments and goals to
advance the prevention of violence. The Organization of American States
would gladly support this process.
In the context of the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the Belém do
Pará Convention, the and discussion on a new global post-2015
development agenda we must ask what impact have all these discussions
and processes made on women’s rights and on our daily lives? It remains a
oppressing task for all States to focus efforts on the roots of
violence against women, in the power structures that perpetuate gender
inequalities and which then reproduce discrimination and violence.
Progress means taking charge as a State and as a society-of the serious
and widespread consequences that violence -in all its manifestations-
has on the lives of women, affecting not only their right to life,
personal integrity and freedom, but moreover in their ability to develop
with autonomy, actively participate in decision-making, make informed
choices about their bodies, their time and their endeavors. In other
words, progress means taking the initiative to guarantee women their
status as equal citizens in terms of their rights and in their sense of
dignity. The time is now.
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