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Guatemala: Submissive, obedient and helpful

By Alba Trejo

Guatemala City.– The ideal wife in this Central American country should be affectionate, helpful, obedient and submissive.

To make things worse, most women are convinced of the fact that men should always decide when to have sex and how many children to have.

These data came from a survey that involved 1,000 women in 20 out of 21 departments in the 12-million-inhabitant nation. Conducted by Vox Latina, it was entitled Gender Issues.

The list of respondents included married and divorced women as well as single mothers. The patriarchal system, which was imposed by the Spanish colonizers in 1524, is still present in the country, making people believe women are inferior to men.

Answers to survey questions also showed that women should blindly obey their husbands and follow their grandfathers' advice to be docile, sweet, easy-going and submissive to their husbands.

Six every ten respondents said they should be obedient. Four every ten feel they should accept their husband’s opinions about the clothes they wear (if they want to avoid being beaten and abused).

Indigenous women situation is even worse. They are taught that men are superior to women.

Both Mayan and non-indigenous women think they get married just to look after the children, prepare the food and clean the house. "Nine every ten believe they should remain virgin until marriage. Otherwise, we lack any value", they say.

Such an attitude has to do with their educational level (most of them are illiterate). The lower the level, the more submissive they are.

Data of the government-run National Institute of Statistics showed that the school dropout rate among indigenous women is alarming, ranging from 50 to 90 percent. Only 43 percent of them complete primary education; 5.8 percent, secondary education; and one percent, university education.

A patriarchal culture is deeply rooted in the 22 Mayan ethnic groups. They feel boys should study because they later go out to work. After they turn seven, girls just have to look after brothers and sisters, prepare food including tortillas (typical cake made of cornmeal bread) and wash clothes.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of Indigenous People has repeatedly said that autochthonous women are discriminated against because they are indigenous, poor and women.

Non-indigenous women do not face a better situation, however. Nine every ten respondents said they should stay home looking after the children and the husband. They believe house chores are the same as a job outside home.

Over half of respondents indicated that their husbands decide how many children they will have.

According to Family Wellbeing Association, a non-governmental organization operating in Guatemala, there are men who do not allow their wives to use contraceptives like the pill.

Although some women have decided to resort to the voluntary surgical method, even against the will of their husbands, there are women who have up to eight children each.

The local Ministry of Public Health and Social Assistance announced that the mother-and-child mortality rate now stands at 153 every 100,000 live births. Around 50,000 pregnant women in rural areas have no access to health care.

Women rights advocacy groups think poverty makes women accept men’s power and abuse.

According to the World Bank, 75 percent of Guatemalans live below the poverty line and 81 percent of the indigenous population is extremely poor. Women’s per capita income in 2002 stood at 16 quetzals (two dollars) a month. This was to cover food, transportation, children education and medicines.

Decisions about buying or selling houses and other properties are made by men. Six every ten women allow their husbands to be the sole owners of the house and other family goods, and hold bank account.

Over half of respondents said their couples have hurt them with weapons, have threatened to kill them, beaten them or yelled at them. They do not usually report their cases to the police because they fear reprisals.

Women rights advocacy groups indicated that some women have been murdered after reporting threats by their couples.

Hilda Morales, representative of the Guatemalan Women’s Group to Combat Violence, said that the number of murdered women has exceeded 2,500 in the last five years. "Most of them suffered from domestic violence", she added.

Giovanna Lemus, member of the Network to End Violence against Women, stressed that current behavioral patterns will prevail in the future if there is no change in the predominant patriarchal, conservative culture.

Uruguay: Health care system to detect domestic violence cases

By Ángela Castellanos

Montevideo.– Have you ever suffered from domestic violence? This is one of the questions local primary health care providers at state and privately owned facilities, including general practitioners, gynecologists and pediatricians will be supposed to ask women when they go to see them.

The question is contained in a form (questionnaire) seeking to detect domestic violence cases as early as possible. Expected to come into force within six months, it is intended for women over 15 years of age, as set forth in a procedural guide entitled Coping with Domestic Violence Situations.

The Mayor’s Office in the capital city announced that domestic violence is posing a serious public health problem in the country. There are around 7,000 reports every year and one woman gets killed every nine days due to it, its Culture Department indicated.

Cristina Grella, manager of the Women and Gender Program at the Ministry of Public Health, hopes that medical staff will use the form as a valuable instrument to promote human rights and will not merely see it as an administrative formality.

Medical staff members have a fundamental role to play in detecting domestic violence cases and providing guidance to women, so that they can change negative perceptions and attitudes toward violence situations.

"I think the guide has been well developed. I do not think, however, all doctors are properly trained in guidance issues. They do not have to give talks, but actually promote women’s empowerment", Dr. Ana Laura Gómez told our correspondant.

Under this provision, medical staff members are also supposed to assess the risks faced by women suffering from gender violence and refer them to relevant specialists.

Health care centers will be asked to notify the Health Ministry every month of the number of respondents and their answers to form questions.

The ministerial guideline emulates similar provisions in other countries and is in keeping with a mandate under the 2002 Domestic Violence Act. The latter obliges the Uruguayan State to prevent, sanction and eventually eradicate these cases, including physical, sexual, psychological, emotional and patrimonial violence.

The move heeds a victims’ wish: "I do not want my husband to go to prison; I just want him to leave me alone".

Peru: Justice versus evasive parents

By Zoraida Portillo

Lima.– A major initiative has just been passed by the Peruvian Congress to put an end to impunity of many parents who do not pay food allowance to their children.

The law establishes a Food Debtor Registration Office. "Its passing called for a lot of lobbying and high-level negotiations", sponsor Rosario Sasieta said.

The bill has been amended on several occasions and some of its articles have been deleted. The original content remains unchanged, but many congress people (mainly men) are not pleased with it. "The important thing for us was to develop a legal instrument that would end abuse (parents refusing to support minor children)", she added.

Before the act is sent to the Executive and enacted, another Congress voting will be required, because it will amend the Procedural Civil Code. New negotiations will be needed, specialists feel. It will not be possible to change the content, but merely reject it altogether, they indicated.

The Registration Office will list men and women who have been sentenced because they have refused to pay child allowance. Justice Committee estimates show that over 100,000 trials were held in the 2004-2006 period for this reason.

Sasieta stressed that such trail costs amounted to 30 million dollars, including assistance, procedures and other formalities. There is no information available, however, on the actual number of parents that have managed to bypass the judicial mandate. Most of them argue they do not have income or are unemployed. Some others do not have fixed address.

Under the new law, the Judiciary will provide the Taxation Superintendent’s Office with a monthly list of newly sentenced individuals. This office will in turn send it to the banking and insurance superintendents, central financial-risk agencies and public registration offices.

Those listed will not be eligible for bank credits or loans and will not be allowed to join sports and scientific delegations.

"These social institutions will exchange information. Judges will have punctual, updated information on evasive parents' financial operations, including cash flows, acquisitions and revenues", Sasieta announced.

She has played an outstanding role in defending women and human rights, and got to Congress thanks to an independent, center-party alliance. She told media representatives that she had been strongly criticized. "My colleagues even accused me of interfering with people’s privacy", she added.

"There are people, mostly men, who ask citizens to vote for them, but fail to pay food allowance to their own children", she emphasized.

"It is not interference; it is determination to face a national pandemic", she stressed.

As the bill will stay in Congress for some time, she is planning a next step: request imprisonment for evasive parents, with sentences depending on the number of months they have failed to pay allowance.

"If a party in a lawsuit in Peru is not taken to prison, it does not pay. The number of evasive parents will dramatically drop if such a move is made", she anticipated.

Although feminist organizations have not taken any action hoping that the bill will finally be passed into law, women who are finding it extremely difficult to get food allowances for their children are already very pleased with it.

Gladys Flores, a 36-year-old mother of a teenager, told WFS that the passing of such an initiative will do justice to women who have to scratch themselves to feed children because their fathers refuse to support them.

She knows what she is talking about. Her ex never gave her a penny for their son. "I took him to court after two years trying to locate him. He left his job and moved to another province. It was impossible for me to find him in the following five years. Can you imagine?"

She has found him, but he says he is very poor and has no money to give. "I have no way to prove he is making money because he is working for an important company", she added.

With the passing of the bill, Gladys and many other women and men -why not- will finally get food allowance for their children.

Argentina: A center for migrant and refugee women suffering from violence

By Norma Loto

Buenos Aires.– Do not let violence take hold of you and be part of your life. This is one of the guiding principles at the First Comprehensive Treatment Center for Migrant and Refugee Women Suffering from Violence in the Argentinean capital.

Opened on December 11, the new facility is staffed by professionals seeking to raise awareness about cultural myths and stereotypes that favor discrimination and intolerance, and disseminate information on human rights protection legislation.

The idea is also to establish a network of government institutions and agencies to eradicate violence, overcome security problems and provide free telephone line services.

The Center was established thanks to Natividad Obeso, a Peruvian refugee in Argentina, who is the president of the National Association of United Migrant and Refugee Women. "Violence against women hurts, but violence against migrants hurts even more", she said.

María José Lubertino, director of the National Institute to Combat Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism, stressed that the Center’s operation is a landmark.

She highlighted the importance of the activities under implementation, as they aim to end both violence against women and discrimination against migrants and refugees.

On the other hand, Andrea Rodríguez Goñi, international expert working with the United Nations Development Fund for Women in the Southern Cone, told WFS that the new institution bridges an information gap and provides valuable guidance to women suffering from such phenomena.

"Women are exposed to all forms of violence: harassment, physical aggression, false promises and abuse by border patrol officers. International laws fail to protect them. These legal instruments generate mistrust and even xenophobic, racist actions", she added.

"Women suffer a lot when they leave their countries of origin looking for better opportunities in developed nations and have to endure other forms of violence", she remarked.

"There is resistance to making room for other cultures, and this poses new hindrances that make living together difficult and give rise to institutional and structural violence", she noted.

"There are no quantitative data available in Argentina on forms of violence against migrant women, but one of the most visible manifestations takes place in the labor market", she added.

Most Peruvian and Paraguayan women who have arrived in the country in the last 15 years are working as domestics. They are often harassed and denigrated. Many Bolivian women are employed at illegal textile mills and live under over- crowdedness and exploitation conditions

Chile: Teenagers and the contraceptive pill

By Johanna Ortiz

Santiago de Chile.– The Constitutional Court (TC) said that the National Fertility Regulation Standards that have been implemented by the Ministry of Health after September 2006 are unconstitutional, and declared they are null and void. TC members argued that the standards had been signed by Health Minister Soledad Barría rather than by President Michelle Bachelet.

They saw them as a formal problem, but the Catholic Church attacked the content. The Episcopal Conference stated that the standards go against life because of their gender approach. They promote emergency contraception since they recommend using Levonorgestrel or the day-after pill, which has a potential abortive effect, it added.

Government spokesman Ricardo Lagos said on January 13, when TC decision was announced, that Bachelet would turn the standards into a supreme decree. She will thus correct the formal problem and implement a health-care policy seeking, among other things, to reduce the number of children to mothers under 19 by 45 percent.

The standards include the supply of the so-called emergency contraceptive pill to teenagers over 14 without seeking parental approval.

The idea is to cut back on pregnancy cases in adolescents. Although the local birth rate moved from 2.5 children in 1983 to 1.9 in 2003, the number of pregnant teenagers has further grown.

High fertility rate in this population group is mostly due to limited access to sex education and family planning services, one of the standards indicates.

Over 27 percent of Chilean youngsters in the 15- to 20-year bracket have already had children. Eight every 10 are not going to school, but wish to do so in the near future. These findings came from the Fourth National Survey by the National Youth Institute in 2004.

Rosa Yañez, coordinator of the Health Network for Sexual and Reproductive Rights, told WFS that young people are aware of contraceptive methods, but do not have money to buy them. "They do not go to doctor offices because they fear criticism", she added.

On the other hand, the Health Network of Latin American and Caribbean Women and other organizations supported Minister Barría and said the standards help deal with unequal access to health care services in Chile.

Women organizations backed up President Bachelet’s decision, but are aware of the fact that it poses new risks. Camila Maturana, a lawyer at Humanas Corporation,told our correspondant that TC made such a ruling because most of its members are conservative. "TC has no jurisdiction over standards but laws", she added.

"TC took action on formal issues this time. When the standards become a decree and a law, TC could well challenge the content", she stressed.

The Women's News Service from Latin America and the Caribbean, International News Agency, offers this weekly service. No reproduction without authorization. Any comment o suggestion please contact us: semlac@redsemlac.net