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The global cry of women: we want to eradicate gender-based violence

2022-07-04T03:40:42.962Z


From the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, more voices join the call to promote a new treaty that eradicates aggression and discrimination against the female population


Widespread and systematic violence against women and girls, perpetrated daily in every corner of the world, is the most horrific human rights violation of our time.

For this reason, from Every Woman Coalition, we salute with deep appreciation the call for a new treaty to end this scourge, made by the President of Colombia, Iván Duque, and the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro , in the context of the IX Summit of the Americas that was held in Los Angeles between June 6 and 10.

The Colombian president, during the speech in front of his peers from the American continent, welcomed our request: “Today I want to refer to the unrestricted defense of human rights, and particularly welcome all the voices that call for us to adopt this international treaty to reject all forms of violence against girls and women.

Almagro also joined the call, in his intervention in the second plenary session.

These voices from Los Angeles join world leaders who have expressed their support for a new global instrument to eradicate violence against women and girls.

Among them are Nobel Peace Prize laureates Jody Williams, Shirin Ebadi, and Tawakkol Karman;

the former United Nations special rapporteur on violence against women, Rashida Manjoo;

the president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Félix Tshisekedi;

and Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari.

Around 81,000 women and girls were murdered in 2020, some 47,000 of them (58%) at the hands of their partners or relatives

From the Americas, the coalition (whose public campaign was launched in Guatemala on September 15, 2018) also has members from more than thirty territories, including most of Latin America, the United States and Canada.

Other partners include Vital Voices Global Partnership, the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights, Futures Without Violence, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, Soroptimist International, the US National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and the creator of the

Red Shoes

project , Elina Chauvet.

The words of President Duque and the OAS are particularly important if we consider the specific context of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Despite the existence of a pioneering regional instrument such as the Convention of Belém do Pará –to prevent, punish and eradicate violence against women–, the situation regarding gender violence is discouraging.

If we talk about violence against girls (against which there is no specific legally binding instrument in the UN), unfortunately the United Nations informs us that Latin America and the Caribbean is the only region in the world where there is no evidence of progress.

In this part of the world, for example, child marriages have not decreased in the last 25 years.

Returning to the world scene, according to data provided by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2021), around 81,000 women and girls were murdered in 2020, some 47,000 of them (58%), at the hands of their couples or relatives.

This equates to one woman or girl being killed every 11 minutes by people they know, and overall one woman or girl being killed every 6.5 minutes.

The international legal tools that exist today are showing that we need more coverage and more commitment, both foreseen in the first draft of the treaty published in November 2021. As activists living and working in the Americas, it was exciting for us to see the treaty campaign advocated at the Summit of the Americas.

We hope that President Duque and Secretary General Almagro are only the first of many other relevant actors in the region to stand on the international stage and defend the document.

Now is the time to put an end to the most serious violation of human rights that affects the most numerous vulnerable population in the world (more than half of the planet's population).

Diego Battistessa

is responsible for Latin America and the Caribbean of Every Woman Coalition, professor and researcher at the Carlos III University of Madrid.


Deborah Alaña Davis

is an activist with the Every Woman Coaliton and a member of

1000 Voices

, a fellowship program of the same coalition.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-07-04

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