Not Celebrating International Women's Day in Latin America, we are fighting gender-related violence

We women, all come from different countries and cultural background, however we all look for one common thing: equality.

I once read that power is money and that equal pay would give them more confidence and therefore more power to fight for equal rights. In Latin America especially in Brazil we are suffering the positive consequence of the #metoo movement, however according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (commonly known as IBGE in Portuguese)
Brazilian women still earn less and consume more time than men doing housework and caring for their family. They usually spend 73 percent more hours caring for their family or doing household chores than men in 2016. The difference was 18.1 hours a week for women and 10.5 hours for men. That's a staggering difference.

A recent report presented in Panama, from the UN Women and the UN Development Programme (UNDP) found that Latin America and the Caribbean is the world’s most violent region for women. The UN report noted that 24 of the 33 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have laws against domestic violence, but only nine of them have passed legislation that addresses several forms of other violence against women in public or private.

In Latin America, we have a culture of high tolerance towards violence against women and girls. You see it in the media all the time — crimes against women are exhibited with very crude images and nobody seems to care about it. Violence becomes normalized; it is seen as a part of life for women.

There is a relationship between income inequality and violence, countries with high income inequality also have high murder rates.

We all know that women’s economic empowerment is a critical aspect of poverty reduction because when there is an increase in women's bargaining power, instead it consequently expands their ability to make strategic life choices for their own and their children's well-being. In 2014, UN Women and the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights launched the Latin American Model Protocol for the investigation of gender-related killings of women. It was done in a 2-year process, with the help of experts from Latin America and all over the world. Brazil was the first country to sign and still in 2016, one in three women suffered some sort of violence and according to a research made by Datafolha it was reported that in every hour 503 Brazilians are victims of physical aggression.

The million dollar question is how we can make policy makers in Latin America realise that empowering women will eventually set them free from striking numbers about violence against women and men. Focusing on prevention and using technology tracking devices on aggressors can be an effective way to stop gender-based violence and Uruguay has shown progress:

Uruguay has implemented a successful pilot project with courts, the police and the women’s ministry. In a high-risk situation, a judge can ordain the abuser to wear electronic bands connected to an electronic device that the woman at risk carries. If the abuser comes close to her, the device alerts the police automatically. While in the programme, both also receive psychological support. So far, not a single one of the women in this programme have been killed.

Source:

Nearly all countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have policies to curb violence against women, but region is still the most violent, UNDP, UN Women

Mulheres ganham menos e gastam mais tempo com familiares, diz IBGE

Os números da violência contra mulheres no Brasil