PRESS CONFERENCE LAUNCHES UNIFEM REPORT ON ENDING GENDER-BASED

VIOLENCE IN LATIN AMERICA AND CARIBBEAN

 

Gender-based violence continued to be a reality in Latin America and the Caribbean, with some countries even reporting an increase, said Marijke Velzeboer-Salcedo, Chief of that region’s section of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), as she launched a report on the issue entitled “No More!” at a Headquarters press conference this afternoon.

Between 1990 and 2007, Ms. Velzeboer-Salcedo said, the majority of almost 900 Chilean women murdered were killed by their partners or ex-partners, according to the report, which was launched simultaneously by United Nations agencies in five Latin American capitals and Washington, D.C., helping mark the International Day on Violence against Women, observed annually on 25 November.  The document is subtitled:  “The right to live a life free from violence in Latin America and the Caribbean.”

She said the report also showed that, in the Bahamas in 2000, gender-based killings or “feminicides”, represented almost half of all murders, increasing to 53 per cent in 2002.  Feminicides also represented 61 per cent of female homicides in Costa Rica while one woman died every nine days as a result of domestic violence in Uruguay.

Just about every country in the region had enacted laws and policies against gender-based violence, Ms. Velzeboer-Salcedo said, but most of the action vis-à-vis implementation was funded by the international community, with the respective Governments devoting very few resources to the problem.

“No More! is a call to action,” she said.  “First of all to our Governments to put into action and commit funds to their proud words and policies so that violence can really and truly be stopped; so that women can live lives free from violence and perpetrators will be punished for crimes committed globally against women and girls.”

She added that the report also called on international organizations, civil society and the media to promote strong commitment to the eradication of violence and impunity.  “A life free from violence is the right of all,” she added.

The report, she said, concluded that Latin American women were not more or less prone to be victims of violence than in other parts of the world.  Around the world, many more women continued to die at the hands of their partners than by strangers, even though she quoted a slightly lower rate of gender-based violence in the United States and a much lower rate in Japan.

Asked about UNIFEM’s activities in the United States, Ms. Velzeboer-Salcedo said that country was mostly used to collect and transfer lessons learned on issues such as gender-based violence.  UNIFEM activities were focused on the southern Americas.

Responding to a question about action against gender-based violence in Brazil, she said it was now exemplary.  The women’s ministry had substantial budgets to implement the so-called “Maria Pena” law that was passed this year.  Before that, however, there had been no comprehensive legislation targeting violence against women.  Monitoring mechanisms were now being set up.

No More! was coordinated by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and produced by the United Nations agencies in that region, she said, with major support from UNIFEM, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

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For information media • not an official record