WOMEN: Growing Awareness on Domestic Violence in Andean Region

By Estrella Gutiérrez Reprint | | Print |

Estrella Gutierrez

CARACAS, Sep 5 1997 (IPS) - Domestic violence is starting to be seen as a critical problem in South America’s Andean region, where only Venezuela lacks special legislation on the phenomenon, a two-day subregional meeting that ended here Friday concluded.

Venezuela’s representative to the Inter-American Commission on Women (CIM), Virginia Rivero, underlined that domestic violence “has turned homes into schools of violence” and become “a public health problem.”

Some 300 representatives from Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela participated in the first subregional consultive meeting on the subject organised by CIM and the Organisation of American States (OAS).

Participants in the seminar shared their country’s experiences on legal mechanisms and practices towards the eradication of domestic violence, and studied the question in the light of international treaties and conventions.

Rivero cited a recent study by the Panamerican Health Organisation which indicated that in 12 of the 17 Latin American countries studied, urban violence was the second cause of death, and the first in terms of loss of productive years, given that the majority of victims were 15 to 30 years old.

Speakers at the seminar said that although statistics on victims of violence against women were not available, it was one of the oldest – albeit invisible – crimes, which plagued all societies and cut across social classes.

Rivero, who is also the coordinator of the Subregional Meeting on Violence against Women and the Family, pointed out that the American continent was the first to legislate on the problem, with the June 1994 approval of the Inter-American Convention to Prevent, Eradicate and Sanction Violence against Women, which has been ratified as a national legal instrument by 25 of the 34 OAS member countries.

The Convention provides a legal foundation for action even in a country like Venezuela, where a draft law on domestic violence – which would pull the phenomenon out of the private sphere and define it as a common, penal offence rather than a matter for family law – has been shelved in parliament.

Another key aspect included in Venezuela’s draft law as well as legislation already passed in other Andean countries is that mistreatment of women and the family is a serious violation of human rights and basic liberties.

The government officials in charge of gender policy in the five member states of the Andean Community trade bloc told IPS that the biggest impact of the new laws on violence against women was the phenomenon’s loss of invisibility.

Olga Sanchez, the national director of Equity for Women in Colombia, said critics blame today’s unprecedented levels of violence against women on the new legislation.

But what is really occurring in Colombia and the other countries where special laws have been passed is that the violence has become visible, she underlined, adding that more and more offenders are being reported and tried, thanks to growing awareness on the subject.

Sanchez agreed with the representatives from Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru in that some sectors of the judiciary have not fully adapted to the idea that physical and psychological abuse of women within the home is a crime rather than a “domestic problem.”

Luz Salgado, the president of Peru’s parliamentary commission on women, said four elements were necessary for checking the scourge of domestic violence against women: awareness among society as a whole and the sectors of power in particular on the significance of the problem; the existence of a clear political will to combat it; sufficient funding; and educational reforms to eradicate patriarchal and discriminatory value systems from early childhood.

Elsa de la Torre, with Ecuador’s National Office on Women, said the new legislation indicated that there was finally recognition that a problem with serious social effects existed.

She stressed the legislation’s positive influence on battered women’s self-esteem, adding that the phenomenon of domestic violence could only be fought outside the sphere of the family, where it was frequently seen as an expression of masculine power and authority over women.

The president of Venezuela’s National Women’s Commission, Maria Guzman, criticised the insensitivity of the politicians who have shelved a draft law that would be “very efficacious in fighting a crime that is growing” in the setting of an overall rise in poverty and violence.

Seminar participants applauded Venezuela’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Relations Carlos Bivero when he said that in spite of all that had been done, violence against women continued to be “one of the most widely ignored and neglected forms of aggression against human beings.”

Latin American societies in general “can barely guess at the gravity and magnitude of the consequences” that violence against women and the family “entail for our present and our future,” he added.

In the seminar’s opening speech, Bivero underlined that domestic violence, which affected millions of people worldwide, failed to distinguish between social, economic or cultural conditions. But, he added, the problem was aggravated among economically dispossessed sectors which have reduced access to education and legal and social protection.

The meeting stressed the need to strengthen the subregion’s network of women against violence, and to promote formulas such as women’s shelters and legal assistance centres.

Participants also highlighted the need to foster increasing familiarity among the judiciary of available legal instruments, and to create and expand bodies specialising in the defence of women’s rights, such as Peru’s ombudswoman’s office.

Another issue discussed was the need for efforts against the media’s perpetuation of stereotypes that depict women as objects, and domestic violence against women as undesireable but “explainable.”

Six workshops focused on participation by civil society in the fight against violence against women; communication and violence; health, education and violence; the judicial system and violence; denunciations and prevention of violence; and the applicability of legislation against violence – achievements and obstacles.