WHAT IT IS LIKE TO BE A WOMAN IN LATIN AMERICA

“Latin America is world’s most violent region for women: UN”

The rate of sexual and gender-based violence against women is the highest in the world in the region with Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Peru, El Salvador and Bolivia representing 81% of global cases. Why is this happening? How has COVID affected this? Men justify it as a part of the Machismo culture, but is it really?

TACKLING GENDER BASED VIOLENCE

Most countries in Latin America have legal frameworks that criminalise all forms of violence against women. Yet, in practice, millions of women in Latin America continue to be failed by the legal system. As many as 98% of the cases of femicide and violence against girls and women in Latin America go unpunished annually.

It is not just violence, it’s also the shocking numbers of rape, assault, and domestic violence cases, happening with near-total impunity. Violence is part of everyday life in these countries, but there’s another brutal war raging, hidden just below the surface: Honduras, a country in Latin America has been called the most dangerous place on earth to be a woman due to an epidemic of “femicide,” or the murder of a woman because she is a woman.

According to Honduras Centre for Women’s Rights, one woman is murdered every sixteen hours in this nation, which is slightly bigger than the size of Bihar.

THE MACHISMO CULTURE

Much of this gender-based violence, is due to a sexist “machismo” culture of gangs, where a man’s power is often measured in bullets. Combined with a failed economy, weak government and judicial system unable to cope with a relentless tide of drug-related crime and femicide, you get a culture where women are disposable.

WHAT IS THE MACHISMO CULTURE?

In machismo culture, men are socially educated to have the power. Therefore, they acquire and internalize norms and values which justify violence as an excuse to consolidate the patriarchal privilege. At the same time, women as victims reinforce the idea that they need to be protected, and protection is an excuse for justifying machismo.

CONSEQUENCE OF THE PANDEMIC

There has been a dramatic surge in cases of violence against girls and women during lockdown in Latin America. While lockdown measures are vital to halt the spread of COVID-19, being confined to home puts girls and women at heightened risk of violence in the home and cuts them off from education, essential protection services and social networks.

In Colombia, reports of domestic violence during lockdown have increased by 175% compared to the same period last year. In Mexico, domestic violence calls to helplines have gone up by 60% in the first weeks of lockdown.

CONCLUSION

In patriarchal civilizations where misogyny rampant, violence against women has a long history, and Latin America is widely acknowledged as the world's deadliest region for women and girls, with the highest rates of femicide. According to UNDP, in Latin America, there are only 40% of women who work. This percent is sufficient to demonstrate Latin America’s women's vulnerability. It is shocking to a great extent, in a world where women are the pillars of the society, their voices and opinions are being suppressed.

Because after all, empowering women gives them control and capacity to decide their own lives.

Is that not how it is supposed to be? Why should young girls and women suffer at the expense of crimes done by men? Why should they be killed because of their gender? Why should they be tortured because they are WOMEN?