Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean

ECLAC is presently collaborating with the regional Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights to establish ways of linking follow-up of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women (Convention of Belém do Pará).

A Memorandum of Understanding was signed between ECLAC and the General Attorney of the Public Ministry of Peru toward the transfer of statistical information on violence against women in Peru.

ECLAC prepared a study analyzing the sources of information available in Latin America and the Caribbean in relation to the set of interim indicators on violence against women, approved by the Statistical Commission at its 40th session (2009).

ECLAC prepared an updated version of the regional interagency report on violence against women on the basis of the information available in recent demographic and health surveys. The report was presented as part of the launching of the regional chapter of the Secretary General’s Campaign to end violence against women in Guatemala City, in November 2009).

Within the framework of the Observatory on Gender Equality, ECLAC organized a meeting on good practices in public policies which included a panel on violence against women in Santiago, in September 2009.

In the framework of the interregional project, ECLAC collaborated with ECE in the development of a proposal for developing and testing a short module questionnaire on violence against women together with a proposal for the accompanying interviewer’s guide and training package. Testing of the module is being prepared by two or three pilot countries in each region.

In November 2007, ECLAC published the regional report on violence against women. The Spanish version was launched in November 2007, under the title “!Ni una más! El derecho a vivir una vida libre de violencia en América Latina y el Caribe”. In December 2007, ECLAC published a report on the follow-up to Goal 3 of the Millennium Development Goals, including a chapter on violence against women.

In order to define the basic set of indicators necessary for the functioning of the ECLAC Gender Observatory, two technical meetings were organized, with representatives from National Machineries for the Advancement of Women/Gender Affairs and National Statistical Offices of Latin America (Aguascalientes (Mexico), in October 2008) and the Caribbean (Port-of-Spain, in December 2008). Reports of both meetings were approved at the Forty-second meeting of the Presiding Officers of the Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean (Santiago, December 2008).

ECLAC initiated the development of a Gender Observatory, as a tool to support governments in analysing regional realities, monitoring gender equality policies and international agreements, and providing technical support and training to national mechanisms for the advancement of women, as well as to national statistical agencies in countries that request such support. Violence against women is one of four main issues of concern of the Observatory.

In March 2013, ECLAC published the third report of the Gender Equality Observatory for Latin America and the Caribbean, which focuses on indicators of physical, economic and decision-making autonomy as seen against the backdrop of the regional agenda shaped by the consensuses reached at the Regional Conferences on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Observatory’s indicators of physical autonomy highlight the obstacles that women in the region face in seeking to take their own decisions about their sexuality and reproduction and to exercise their right to a life free of violence.