Course on measuring gender-based violence against women and femicide-feminicide

Gender-based violence against women is a fundamental human rights violation and a major obstacle to development in Latin America and the Caribbean. It violates and restricts women's enjoyment of their fundamental rights and freedoms, with serious consequences for the health, economic opportunities, rights, and well-being of between 30% and 70% of women in the region. Its consequences not only profoundly affect the lives of women victims but also threaten the stability, security, and well-being of their families and communities. For more than three decades, this scourge has been one of the most pressing issues on the international and regional human rights agenda.

The challenge of measuring the prevalence and incidence of gender-based violence against women has been a concern of international instruments. In Latin America, the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women (1993), the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the Belém do Pará Convention, the Regional Gender Agenda, and the 2030 Agenda have all established that efforts to end violence against women must be accompanied by rigorous and reliable statistics. 

The duty of due diligence of States, enshrined in CEDAW, obliges them to adopt all appropriate measures to prevent, investigate, prosecute, punish, and provide redress for acts or omissions by non-State actors that result in gender-based violence against women. This obligates State actors to investigate and record the various services provided by the State to victims and survivors, and consequently, to produce and disseminate statistical data derived from State efforts in prevention, support, redress, and protection of victims, as well as from judicial proceedings. Along with implementing strategies to end gender-based violence against women, these efforts must be accompanied by reliable statistics on the various manifestations, characteristics, causes, and consequences of gender-based violence experienced by women in all their diverse contexts and situations.

The accumulated analysis of the processes of measuring and investigating gender-based violence against women has been built thanks to the consensus of international, state, academic and civil society actors, which has allowed progress in strengthening a socio-statistical analytical field of great importance for the social sciences and its implications in different areas of knowledge.

The proposal of this course consists of generating a virtual training space, with expository classes and discussion forums, taught by professionals and academics with extensive experience in the formulation, analysis of public policies and the measurement of gender-based violence against women in countries of Latin America and the Caribbean.

The course contains a proposal that will allow its participants to advance in the theoretical analysis of gender-based violence against women and in the characteristics of confronting it, mainly with a perspective of measuring its prevalence and incidence, as well as processes and results in the application of public policies.

GENERAL PURPOSE

Participants in the course will learn about the processes for measuring gender-based violence against women in Latin America. They will consider the differences between official statistics on the prevalence and incidence of gender-based violence against women and quantitative information, derived from administrative records, on the actions taken by the public sector to address and combat the violence experienced by women.

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES

• To understand the characteristics of gender-based violence against women, in relation to the international and regional regulatory framework, particularly its mandates and recommendations on measuring its prevalence and incidence.
• To describe the analytical framework for the production of information on gender-based violence against women and the necessary ethical parameters for the collection and dissemination of information.
• Identify the main sources, procedures and indicators for measuring gender-based violence against women.
• Analyze the progress of surveys on gender-based violence against women and their methodological challenges.
• Developing capacities to generate statistics from administrative records and their usefulness in accounting for state and civil responses to gender-based violence against women.

• Sources and procedures used to measure gender-based violence against women
• Monitoring the Belem do Pará Convention. Compliance process indicators
• Administrative records on violence against women, standardization for the generation of statistics on violence against women in general, and on femicide
• The quality of the measurement of femicide/feminicide and violent deaths due to gender
• Proposal for standardization. The Single Registry of Femicide for Latin America and the Caribbean
• New dimensions of analysis in violence against women, disappearances, trafficking and femicide. Challenges of information gathering.
• The challenges of intersectionality for measuring extreme violence against women
• Measuring violence against women and girls during the COVID-19 crisis: Old measurement problems versus new and urgent responses.
• Lessons learned and challenges in measuring gender-based violence against women. 

The seminar will be developed in 15 sessions led by the teaching team.

Once a week, at the beginning of each class, participants will have a synchronous virtual meeting and watch an explanatory video on the topic covered in the session, along with required and optional reading materials. Participants will be able to review the materials and participate in the proposed activities (for one week after their publication). Afterward, the instructor for each class will answer participants' questions.