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SPECIAL REPORTS |
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CENTRAL
AMERICA: Gender-based Violence, the Hidden
Face of Insecurity
By José Adán Silva
MANAGUA (IPS) - Gender-based violence
and sexual abuse are serious public security
problems in Central America, and Nicaragua
is no exception, according to reports by
United Nations agencies and women’s
organisations.
The Central American Human Development
Report 2009-2010, released on Oct. 20 by the
United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP)
Regional Bureau for Latin America and the
Caribbean, says violence against women,
adolescents and children is the "hidden" and
"most invisible face" of public insecurity
in the region.
According to the study, entitled "Opening
Spaces for Citizen Security and Human
Development", two out of three women
murdered in Central America are killed for
gender-related reasons, a phenomenon that is
known as femicide.
Gender violence, however, remains largely
concealed by prevailing social attitudes
that condone it and by the victims’
reluctance to report abuse.
But a murder committed early this year in
the small town of Diriomo, in the eastern
Nicaraguan province of Granada, led to a
far-reaching investigation on the issue.
What made this crime stand out and highlight
the violence women face daily is the fact
that Luz Marina Lezama wasn't just another
victim. When she was shot to death by her
husband on Apr. 20 she was serving as chief
of the local women’s police station, an
institution created to help women gain
better access to justice and protection.
This prompted the Nicaraguan National Police
Force to conduct an investigation to
determine what percentage of the crimes
committed against women were motivated by
gender reasons.
The results, published in September,
revealed that at least 25 of the 45 women
killed in Nicaragua in the first half of
2009 were victims of domestic violence.
When she presented the outcome of the
investigation, national police chief Aminta
Granera informed that of the more than
65,000 women who reported that they had
suffered some form of abuse, only 15,000
filed a formal complaint with the police.
The women who pressed charges had suffered
the worst abuse, including sexual assault,
bodily injuries, mutilations and torture,
Granera said. More specifically, 4,129 were
cases of domestic violence, 2,253 were cases
of sexual assault, and 8,645 were cases of
physical and psychological harm, such as
threats, blackmail and verbal abuse.
"The rest of the victims kept quiet. This
shows that even though it is the leading
public security problem (in Nicaragua), it
is the least reported crime, and, therefore,
the one with the greatest impunity," Granera
said.
The UNDP report, which assessed levels of
public insecurity in Belize, Costa Rica, El
Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and
Panama, reported that Central America has
become the region with the highest levels of
non-political violence worldwide.
However, the report clarifies that while the
countries of Central America's so-called
"northern triangle" have homicide rates five
to seven times higher than the global
average of nine per 100,000 people - 48 per
100,000 in Guatemala, 52 per 100,000 in El
Salvador and 58 per 100,000 in Honduras -
Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Panama to the
south are significantly safer, with murder
rates of 11 per 100,000 population, 13 per
100,000 and 19 per 100,000, respectively.
Invisible crimes
Women, adolescents and children, ethnic
minorities and groups with alternative
sexual orientations are the main victims of
what the study refers to as the region’s
"phenomenon of 'invisible' (or rather 'invisibilised')
insecurities," whereby certain groups are
"exposed to an exceptional disparity between
the risk of violent or predatory crimes they
face and the protection they receive."
According to the report’s Nicaraguan
consultant, Francisco Javier Bautista, these
crimes are severely affecting the quality of
life and normal development of families
across Central American society.
"These are the most invisible of all crimes.
They’re generally hidden within the private
sphere of the home, where most are
committed," he said to IPS.
Bautista noted that the report presents at
least six atrocious forms of "invisible
crimes" that plague children in Central
America: murder, forced participation in
criminal activities, police brutality,
domestic abuse, sexual abuse and assault,
and forced labour and prostitution.
As for Central America’s women, more than 45
percent reported different forms of violence
and aggression, said Bautista, who
participated in the establishment of the
Nicaraguan National Police Force in 1979.
According to the UNDP study, most cases of
violence against women occur in the family
and the perpetrator is usually the husband,
intimate partner or ex of the abused woman.
The study underlines that continuous verbal
violence in Central America is as
commonplace as it is underreported. In
Nicaragua, in particular, at least 48
percent of all women in a relationship are
subjected to verbal violence from their
husband or partner.
For María Teresa Blandón, of La Corriente, a
Managua-based region-wide women’s
organisation, the UNDP study and the figures
for Nicaragua confirm what activists have
been denouncing for years.
The highest rates of violence occur in the
home. This contrasts with a common claim by
most Central American women, who "say the
home is one of the safest places on earth,"
Blandón told IPS.
"In our region, the home is precisely where
the most widespread and alarming forms of
violence against women, adolescents and
children - such as femicide, rape and
domestic abuse - occur," the activist said.
"What happens is that when abuse ends in
murder it’s easier to identify the crime and
document it; but with rape and sexual
assaults, two out of three cases stay in the
home," she said.
And even femicide is under-recorded, said
Blandón, who added that 60 femicides had
been committed in Nicaragua this year as of
October, 15 more than the number indicated
by police statistics.
With respect to the various forms of
domestic violence, Blandón said that in 2008
the Nicaraguan Institute of Legal Medicine
conducted forensic examinations on 11,172
female victims. Of these, 44.5 percent were
women who had been sexually abused, 41
percent had suffered psychological trauma,
and the rest were victims of physical
violence.
Fátima Millón, an activist with the Central
American organisation Network of Women
Against Violence, told IPS that two factors
determine the high incidence of these crimes
in the countries of the region: a lack of
awareness-raising efforts on reporting such
crimes, and the fact that the security and
justice systems are dominated "by men who
re-victimise abused women."
Millón protested that when women file a
complaint for machista violence, the police
officers who write up the reports tend to
treat them with hostility and question them
in such a way as to make them wish they
hadn’t gone to the police in the first
place.
Typical questions are "Were you leading him
on?" or "Did you like the guy?" and similar
insinuations that the violence had been
provoked by the woman’s behaviour.
"They ask things that are so insulting and
out of place that many women often feel
ashamed and decide not to follow through
with charges," Millón complained.
In Millón's opinion "there’s a total lack of
clear mechanisms and public policies aimed
at preventing gender violence and providing
effective access to justice for the
victims."
Based on data from the Women’s Police
Station, Millón said that domestic violence
in the country has escalated in recent
years, especially between 2007 and June of
this year.
In Nicaragua, one out of three women married
or living with a man has been subjected to
physical violence, including sexual abuse,
at some point in her life. Half the victims
report that they first suffered abuse before
the age of 15.
"According to the United Nations Population
Fund (UNFPA), in 2008 alone there were 1,400
pregnant girls under the age of 15. Most of
these pregnancies were the result of rape,"
Millón said, citing a study published in
Managua in June by the multilateral agency.
The UNDP report for its part says there were
15,000 reported cases of rape from 2002 to
2005 in the four countries for which
official records were made available - Costa
Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua.
Doing something about these "invisible
crimes" is an obligation that the State
cannot ignore, she added.
But violence against women - like violence
against children or ethnic minorities - "is
almost totally excluded from the official
debate on public insecurity in the region,"
said Millón.
The report recommends implementing a
strategy to prevent and eliminate violence
against women, which must take into account
the specific characteristics that set this
crime apart.
The UNDP also highlighted the invisible
nature of domestic violence, which is
usually considered a private matter.
The first step that must be taken to make
the problem visible, according to the
report, is to increase awareness on the
nature, magnitude and consequences for
society as a whole.
It also underlines the importance of
"combating impunity and defining more fully
and specifically the behaviours that
constitute forms of violence against women
and must be treated as criminal offences
punishable by law."
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