Tag Archive for: Gender and participation

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Red Global Cedaw: experiences of construction of shadow reports by feminist social organizations

Last Tuesday, April 26, we participated in the third meeting of the CEDAW Global Network where we shared experiences on the preparation of shadow reports.

“Below, we offer a google translate version of the original article in Spanish. This translation may not be accurate but serves as a general presentation of the article. For more accurate information, please switch to the Spanish version of the website. In addition, feel free to directly contact in English the person mentioned at the bottom of this article with regards to this topic”.

All States that have signed the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) must submit periodic reports to its Committee to account for compliance with the international obligations assumed with their signature and accession. The civil society organizations of each country, depending on their experience and the work they carry out, can present a “shadow report”, a kind of alternative and complementary report to those presented by the States parties to account for the reality of women that they know first-hand, so that the Committee has the necessary tools to prepare the final recommendations.

In view of the relevance of the participation of organizations in this process, we were invited to participate in the meetings of the CEDAW Global Network, organized by Gloria Ramírez, Coordinator of the UNESCO Chair in Human Rights at UNAM. The objective of this Network is to create a space for convergence, dialogue and discussion around the experiences of elaboration and participation in the formation of CEDAW reports.

From our experience we present and share the process of preparing three reports for CEDAW, all in the framework of the 65th session of the Convention: Tobacco control in Argentina: pending tasks to protect women’s health; Gender violence and public communication policies and Access to natural resources of rural women in the Gran Chaco region of Argentina.

We heard contributions from both the UNESCO Chair in Human Rights at UNAM and civil society organizations from Ecuador, Guatemala, Uruguay and Colombia.

Throughout the meeting we shared experiences by country regarding the challenges of each region, as well as the implementation of the gender perspective in the different areas of the country. The possibility of collaboration agreements with the Chair was explored and we delved into the progress and challenges in reference to gender violence in each country.

In this framework, together with the Global Network and the organizations that make it up, we will continue working to support cooperation in monitoring the implementation of the commitments assumed by the States party to CEDAW, the preparation of shadow reports and the exploration and development of advocacy strategies to collaborate in the guarantee of the human rights of women and diversities and gender-based dissidence.

 

More Information

Contact

Cecilia Bustos Moreschi, cecilia.bustos.moreschi@fundeps.org 

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Public Hearings of the Public Defender’s Office: “The media and information in the pandemic”

During the year 2021, faced with a pandemic context, we participated in the first Public Hearings of the Public Defender’s Office in virtual mode, through a videoconference platform and, at the beginning of this year, the reports resulting from the process were published.

Below, we offer a google translate version of the original article in Spanish. This translation may not be accurate but serves as a general presentation of the article. For more accurate information, please switch to the Spanish version of the website. In addition, feel free to directly contact in English the person mentioned at the bottom of this article with regards to this topic.

Communication during the pandemic

The Public Hearings of the Public Defender’s Office have been held every year since 2013, with the exception of the 2019-2020 period, fulfilling the mandate of the Audiovisual Communication Services Law to evaluate the functioning of the body through citizen participation.

The theme that governed the conversations of the last Hearing was “The media and information in the pandemic”. The meetings that were held were of the utmost importance since it was an issue that has affected not only the country but also the world in a transversal way. Approaching communication from a rights and gender approach implies conceiving all citizens as subjects of law and commits the State to guarantee their participation and incidence in political decisions. This becomes urgent in a context in which information is a fundamental human right for survival, which is why this Hearing allowed the Public Defender’s Office to internalize the needs and claims of the different actors in society regarding this issue. and all those who touch us as communicational citizens.

The thematic axes that were debated were: right to communication and Law 26,522 of Audiovisual Communication Services; access to audiovisual communication services in coverage of the pandemic; information and disinformation in the audiovisual media about the Covid-19 pandemic; specific considerations in the audiovisual coverage of the pandemic on historically marginalized sectors; State and public communication policies linked to the operation of audiovisual communication services in a pandemic; situation of the workers of the press, regulation and organization of work; proposals, suggestions and requests addressed to the Public Defender’s Office in relation to audiovisual media in a pandemic.

Our intervention

Organized by regions, the first virtual audience was that of the Central Region, which includes the provinces of Córdoba, Santa Fé and Entre Ríos, divided into two days due to the large call. Through the participation of Mayca Balaguer, coordinator of the areas of Legal Affairs and Gender and Sexual Diversity, we participated in this Public Hearing contributing from a human rights and gender perspective.

In reference to the aspects that we consider positive and negative in the media coverage of the pandemic, we highlight that the media served and had a fundamental role as a channel for transmitting information related to Covid-19 and health measures. However, we express our concern about some cases of fake news, disinformation and even bad examples.

Likewise, regarding media and symbolic gender violence, we state that during the pandemic we observed that in many cases the media reinforced gender stereotypes, fundamentally through a strong stigmatization of fat bodies, motivated by changes in habits in diet and sedentary lifestyle caused by isolation. Far from promoting healthy habits in a way that respects body diversity, we noticed that many media outlets fell into fat-phobic and stereotyping discourses.

Regarding the role of the State, we highlight the need to develop visibility strategies for alternative, self-managed, community media from different parts of the country, which are dedicated to reporting from the territories. We believe that the contribution of these media is key to recovering the voices and perspectives of non-hegemonic sectors from a perspective that respects human rights, especially those that are made up of women and dissidents, people with disabilities, racialized, fat, etc. At this point, a more equitable distribution of the official guideline may be a key factor in sustaining these media, which, due to the socioeconomic consequences derived from social isolation, may cease to exist, fueling the monopolization of information in the hands of hegemonic media.

The importance of citizen participation in communication policies

The Public Defender’s Office’s main objective is to promote and guarantee the rights of audiences in pursuit of democratic communication throughout the country. To achieve this, it holds public hearings that seek to actively participate and involve citizens in decision-making so that these are made in a transparent manner and, ultimately, a more informed and participatory society is generated that has access to its right to communication.

In these public hearings, they function as a mechanism for the State to carry out an updated diagnosis on the operation of the audiovisual media, recovering different points of view, opinions, experiences and studies provided by citizens. This makes it possible to inform, design and implement public policies aimed at the recognition and exercise of the rights of the audience.

For this reason, we celebrate this space for citizen participation in which we participate, since it is essential to guarantee equal access to information and to expand the diversity of voices in the government decision-making process. This promotes the construction of informed, inclusive, more democratic, fair and equitable public policies that incorporate a rights approach.

Autor

Irene Aguirre

Contact

Cecilia Bustos Moreschi, cecilia.bustos.moreschi@fundeps.org

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The rights of women in Argentina in times of Covid-19

Situation during the first year of the pandemic and recommendations to promote measures with a gender perspective.

“Below, we offer a google translate version of the original article in Spanish. This translation may not be accurate but serves as a general presentation of the article. For more accurate information, please switch to the Spanish version of the website. In addition, feel free to directly contact in English the person mentioned at the bottom of this article with regards to this topic”.

During 2020, together with other organizations, we worked on the preparation of a report that presents a monitoring of the responses given by the Argentine State to address the pandemic and the impact of these responses on women’s rights. This monitoring seeks to report on the status of women’s rights in Argentina in the framework of the COVID-19 pandemic during its first year, contribute to the fulfillment of women’s rights and gender justice and urge the State to take the necessary measures to guarantee and protect rights from a gender perspective.

Within this Gender Roundtable, a working group has been created that has prepared this report made up of Lawyers from the Argentine Northwest in Human Rights and Social Studies (ANDHES), Amnesty International Argentina (AIAR), Center for the Implementation of Constitutional Rights (CIDC), Ombudsman’s Office of the Province of Buenos Aires, Latin American Justice and Gender Team (ELA), Foundation for the Development of Sustainable Policies (FUNDEPS), Observatory of Adolescents and Young People / Gino Germani Research Institute (OAJ / IIGG ), La Hoguera Feminist Organization, Network for the Rights of People with Disabilities (REDI) and Xumek, AC for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights.

The report describes the initiatives and approaches adopted by the Argentine government to protect the rights of women and diversities during the first year of the pandemic from March 2020, when the first case of COVID-19 in the country was reported, until the end of 2020. The following priority issues are addressed: political participation and gender perspective in the measures; gender-based violence; the right to care; and access to sexual and (non) reproductive health.

Download Executive Summary

Download full report

Contact

Mayca Balaguer, maycabalaguer@fundeps.org

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Equity in the media: why and for what?

In the early morning of June 11, the Law of Equity in the Representation of Genders in the Communication Services of the Argentine Republic was enacted. A Lley product of the feminist struggles in favor of a democratization in the media organizations in both labor spheres and as producers of meaning.

“Below, we offer a google translate version of the original article in Spanish. This translation may not be accurate but serves as a general presentation of the article. For more accurate information, please switch to the Spanish version of the website. In addition, feel free to directly contact in English the person mentioned at the bottom of this article with regards to this topic”.

The media have a fundamental role in the construction and reproduction of meanings and representations about social and subjective reality. As such, they can contribute to the support and justification of inequalities or they can question them, both from their speeches through the content they produce and disseminate as well as within themselves, being understood as work spaces with a specific labor organization.
Investigating how media content is produced, who produces it, what is their training and trajectory, and what place each one occupies within the media allows us to have a map of the situation to address the violence and structural gender inequalities that they reproduce within these spaces.
The media companies, specifically the large commercial media, are characterized by their work structure founded from an androcentric approach. What has conditioned the income, permanence, development and work performance of women and, of course, has excluded transvestite, trans, intersex and non-binary people.
This is visible in the labor trajectories differentiated by gender:

Source: Chaher and Pedraza (2018). Media and gender organizations. Córdoba: Fundeps, Communicate Equality.

To make this graph, only binary data were obtained in terms of gender, that is why it has not been possible to reconstruct work trajectories taking into account the diversity of identities, such as transvestites, trans, intersex and non-binary people. At the time the investigation was carried out, there was only a single trans person working in one of the Córdoba media. Currently there is some progress in this regard, although it remains insufficient. It is possible to recognize the structural gender inequalities that make it difficult, even more than for cisgender women, to access employment, particularly in these types of companies with diverse and dissident identities.

Now, when observing the graph, it is possible to notice that although most of the people who graduate from careers related to communication in the city of Córdoba and Buenos Aires are women, less than half of them go to work in the media commercial. Even fewer are promoted to higher positions, a situation that is reproduced again, although with a deeper inequality, in union spaces.
These career paths are traversed by personal paths. Unpaid domestic and care work falls mainly on women and femininity, affecting their autonomy. As a result, they are the majority among part-time workers and hired under precarious regimes in order to reconcile their working life with unequally distributed care responsibilities. To this must be added micro-chauvinisms and all types of violence that are combined with masculinity pacts, which perpetuate these unequal and exclusive structures.

The lack of gender and care policies, as well as the lack of gender awareness and training in a transversal manner, or the delegation of this responsibility to feminist communicators and gender editors, are some of the obstacles that many of the media companies most important in the country have not been able to overcome. Even in a context of profound changes in favor of gender equality and the demands of the audiences.

What does the law say?

The recently enacted Law of Equity in the Representation of Genders in Communication Services of the Argentine Republic is inserted in a national and international legal framework and of historical claims of various social and feminist movements, of which it is the result. Claims that were previously reflected in national legislation, such as Law 26,485 on Comprehensive Protection to prevent, punish and eradicate violence against women in the areas in which they develop their interpersonal relationships, Law 26,743 on Gender Identity and the Law 26,522 of Audiovisual Communication Services, among others. As well as public policies, such as the creation of the Public Defender’s Office and the AFSCA, were the result of the commitments assumed by the State in the fight against gender violence.

Its purpose is “to promote equity in the representation of genders from a perspective of sexual diversity in communication services, whatever the platform used” in all the country’s communication media, although it is only mandatory for those of management state. This law does not seek parity, but goes further: it is based on the principle of equity and the inclusion of all gender gender identities in all positions of the media labor structures, breaking with binarism. the promotion of democratization and diversity of voices and their labor structures.

This democratization process from a gender and diversity perspective is understood as gradual, gradual and only mandatory for state-run media, while privately managed media will be encouraged through the preference in assigning official guidelines in cases to carry out measures in the sense proposed by this law.

These positive action measures move away from the punitive paradigm to establish proactive policies that encourage transformations respecting the times and processes of each privately managed media.

In turn, the corresponding authority will be created for the implementation of the law in order to guarantee its compliance.

We celebrate these legal advances that are the result of the insistent struggle of feminist movements, especially feminist communicators and journalists who in their daily practices sustained, and still do, transformations inside and outside their work spaces. We are aware that the struggle does not end with the enactment of a law, but requires a comprehensive and intersectional implementation plan to achieve real equality and make the rights formally sanctioned tangible.

We will keep our attention on the implementation of the law and the public policies designed and carried out to achieve it.

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Advances and stagnations in the rights of LGBTIQA + people: towards material equality

May 17 corresponds to the date on which the World Health Organization removed (31 years ago, in 1990) homosexuality from the list of mental illnesses. That is why on this day the “International Day for the Fight against Discrimination due to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity” is celebrated and particularly in the province of Córdoba the “Provincial Day for Equality and Non-Discrimination due to Sexual Orientation, Identity and Gender Expression ”. These advances are accompanied by laws that demonstrate achievements but also obstacles in their implementation.

“Below, we offer a google translate version of the original article in Spanish. This translation may not be accurate but serves as a general presentation of the article. For more accurate information, please switch to the Spanish version of the website. In addition, feel free to directly contact in English the person mentioned at the bottom of this article with regards to this topic”

May 17 is a fundamental day to make visible and raise awareness about the multiple violence suffered by LGBTIQ + people.

By virtue of the incorporation of international human rights treaties into our constitution, eradicating discrimination based on gender is a duty assumed by the State and also a commitment by all of us who want to live in a more just and equitable society.

There are various tools to eradicate violence, one of them is the formation and creation of laws, which imply the recognition of rights. Among them we can name Law 26,485 on Comprehensive Protection to Prevent, Punish and Eradicate Violence; the 26,743 of gender identity; Law 26,150 on comprehensive sexual education; among other. Despite its recognition, in law there are two fundamental concepts: on the one hand, formal equality, and on the other, material equality. The first corresponds to what we have been talking about, the recognition and promotion of equal rights written in the law, but the second is the opposite. That is, it allows us to identify if what is written is reflected in everyday life and these rights are specified, generating real equality, or if they are simply statements narrated on paper.

According to updated data from Amnesty International, people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or intersex, or are perceived as such, are at greater risk of being harassed and victims of violence because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. The life expectancy of the transvestite-trans population in Argentina is 35 to 41 years. In this sense, it is important to remember the case of Tehuel De La Torre, a trans boy who disappeared on March 11 of this year, when he left his home for a job interview. To this day Tehuel does not appear, there are few clues about his whereabouts since the last people who saw him alive do not provide information, and it is a case that does not have enough repercussion and dissemination in the hegemonic media. The Tehuel case highlights the reality of the country’s trans population: the situation of extreme vulnerability and exposure to multiple gender-based violence.

Among the discriminations that people suffer due to their sexual orientation or gender identity there are homophobia, lesbophobia and transphobia, which are irrational hatred towards people whose sexual orientation is different from heterosexuality and / or their gender identity does not matches your biological sex. An example of this is the rejection that was generated by a sector of Cordoba society towards the LGBTIQA + flag that was hung by the Municipality of the capital in Sarmiento Park. On that occasion, there were clear reactions of violence and hate mobilizations against him, even reaching the fact that on several occasions the flag was removed, including acts of physical violence against LGBTIQA + people.

The aforementioned regulations suffer some difficulties at the time of their implementation due to the resistance of conservative groups that hinder the development of this policy in society. Whether through legal litigation, media campaigns, legislative lobbies, and particularly resistance in teaching spaces such as schools. These sites are important institutions for socialization and learning, where issues of promoting equality and non-discrimination must be addressed early.

What has been said so far, makes it clear that despite having rights recognized in various laws (formal equality), even so, people continue to suffer multiple violence because of their sexual orientation and / or gender orientation (material equality) when they do not conform to the heterocisnorm. Therefore, the need for a comprehensive plan to eradicate violence is evident. The enactment of a law is not enough, but comprehensive public policies are required that provide true responses to the problem and a profound cultural change.

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Other‌ ‌economies: the‌ ‌self-management‌ ‌from‌ a‌ ‌perspective of‌ ‌la‌ Sustainability‌ ‌of‌ la‌ ‌Life

After a year of research and collective work together with the Espacio de Economía Feminista de Córdoba, we published a report that reveals the self-managed experiences of the city of Córdoba and Valle de Punilla related to Feminist Economy, Ecological Economy, Popular Economy and Social Economy and Solidarity.

“Below, we offer a google translate version of the original article in Spanish. This translation may not be accurate but serves as a general presentation of the article. For more accurate information, please switch to the Spanish version of the website. In addition, feel free to directly contact in English the person mentioned at the bottom of this article with regards to this topic”

In Córdoba, self-management, cooperative and entrepreneurial spaces made up of dissident feminities and identities have developed in recent years, starting from the visibility of the feminist struggle, and with their collective organization. Its existence, strategies and forms of organization, production and consumption, have gained essential importance in local economies, and are presented as a real alternative to the hegemonic capitalist model.

This research makes a reading from the Feminist Economy of these experiences, which allows (de) constructing practices that reproduce inequalities and violence against women and dissident sex-generic identities within the spaces in which they develop, and expand the horizon towards a socioeconomic equity that is nothing more than gender equity.

In this line, it is intended to explore, learn about and analyze various self-managed and community experiences of the City of Córdoba and the Punilla Valley, and make visible their contributions to the construction of an alternative to the neoliberal model and investigate the actions of the State in development of public policies that contribute to this alternative. The place from which this report is intended to be narrated is from the perspective of the territorialized experiences themselves in dialogue with the perspective built from a diverse interdisciplinary field full of nuances and a dynamic construction generated in the exchange of Feminist Economy with the Popular Economy, the Ecological Economy and the Social and Solidarity Economy.

To this end, together with the Feminist Economy Space and with the support of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, we interviewed 16 community organizations, cooperatives and self-managed spaces in the area. The visibility of these practices enriches the dialogue between the theoretical proposals about them and will collaborate in the construction of new knowledge. At the same time, it offers first-hand information, necessary to promote public debate on the needs, views and contributions of these organizations to economies founded from paradigms that put life at the center, instead of profit and exclusion. Knowing these experiences allows us to identify their concrete contributions to the construction and maintenance of other economies, which propose alternatives to neoliberal capitalism and hetero-patriarchy, and seek to sustain human and non-human lives.

Questions that open up others: Do community organizations and self-managed enterprises constitute an alternative to the neoliberal capitalist model?

This first approach, achieved through this research, leads us to conclude that most of the community organizations, cooperatives and self-managed enterprises interviewed constitute, or at least try to establish themselves, as an alternative to the neoliberal and heterocispatriarchal model, putting in the center the lives and care that make them possible.

On the other hand, it is shown that, in practice, and from the perspective of the organizations analyzed, the contribution of the State to the development of these alternatives is insufficient, characterized by ineffective public policies and in some cases nonexistent, in line with the role that the State is expected to occupy in a neoliberal economic model.

Se espera que el presente trabajo, aporte a la visibilización, reconocimiento y fortalecimiento de espacios autogestivos cuyas prácticas apunten a poner a la vida en el centro, desde una necesaria mirada local y a la vez crítica. Se sostiene —y en el contexto actual está evidenciado— que la sostenibilidad de la vida debe estar en el centro del debate. Se debe seguir pensando y construyendo colectivamente la economía que se desea y necesita para que todas las vidas que habitan este planeta lo hagan de una manera digna. Por esto queremos aportar a la visibilización de las organizaciones que apuestan cada día a otro mundo posible.

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Other‌ ‌economies: the‌ ‌self-management‌ ‌from‌ a‌ ‌perspective of‌ ‌la‌ Sustainability‌ ‌of‌ la‌ ‌Life

Together with the Córdoba Feminist Economy Space, we present a report that rereads the self-managed experiences of the city of Córdoba and Valle de Punilla related to Feminist Economy, Ecological Economy, Popular Economy and Social and Solidarity Economy.

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Gender and International Financial Institutions: the case of the Inter-American Development Bank

This document proposes a descriptive and evaluative analysis of the implementation of the Gender Policy in the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and its main objective is to investigate such implementation based on the weaknesses and strengths identified in the Bank’s gender policy. , in order to continue making progress in incorporating elements and tools that guarantee women’s rights and diversity.

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Analysis of the IDB Invest Gender Risk Assessment Tool

This document proposes a descriptive and evaluative analysis of the recently published (2020) “Gender Risk Assessment Tool” (HERG) of the IDB Invest, which is a gender plan for companies to evaluate the impact of their projects on gender issues and structure prevention processes.

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Analysis of the new Environmental and Social Policy Framework of the Inter-American Development Bank, from a gender perspective

This document analyzes those issues that have been incorporated and the aspects that have not been incorporated and / or modified from the public consultation process carried out by the IDB. In particular, it emphasizes the need to guarantee the rights of girls, adolescents, women and LGBTTTQ + people so that the human rights of all people are effectively respected and guaranteed (Only spanish)

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Comments on the second draft of the IDB Environmental and Social Policy Framework, from a gender perspective

On Tuesday, August 5, we sent the IDB a new document with observations and comments on the second draft of the Environmental and Social Policy Framework from a gender perspective.

Below, we offer a google translate version of the original article in Spanish. This translation may not be accurate but serves as a general presentation of the article. For more accurate information, please switch to the Spanish version of the website. In addition, feel free to directly contact in English the person mentioned at the bottom of this article with regards to this topic.

In December 2019, the Inter-American Development Bank -BID- published the draft Environmental and Social Policy Framework -MPAS- to modernize its environmental and social policies. In January of this year, the face-to-face and virtual public consultations began, where Fundeps was present. In April, we sent a document with comments and observations on the draft MPAS from a gender perspective, which had the input of other civil society organizations. In this document we point out, above all, the lack of mainstreaming of the gender perspective in all the performance standards of the draft MPAS.

At the beginning of July, the Bank published the second draft of the MPAS in which it incorporated some of the recommendations sent by stakeholders (civil society, indigenous communities, Afro-descendant community) and began the second phase of the process for sending comments that It ended on Tuesday, August 5. From Fundeps, we analyzed this second draft of the MPAS and sent a new document with observations and comments from a gender perspective, with the aim of incorporating issues that we consider fundamental when considering the human rights of girls, adolescents, women and LGTTTBIQ + people. in the new social and environmental framework of the IDB.

Among the main points identified, we find positive aspects that have been incorporated as the reference to the Performance Standard -ND- 9 on gender equality in PS 1 (Evaluation and Management of Environmental and Social Risks and Impacts), PS 2 ( Labor and Working Conditions), PS 5 (Land Acquisition and Involuntary Resettlement) and PS 10 (Stakeholder Engagement and Disclosure of Information). Another aspect to highlight is the incorporation of ILO Convention 190 against violence and harassment in the workplace and Convention 100 on Equal Remuneration.

However, there are still many aspects to be incorporated that we believe are essential to guarantee gender equality and the mainstreaming of the gender perspective in the projects financed by the Bank. Among the necessary issues to be added to the new MPAS is the Bank’s duty to explicitly and transversally incorporate current and future international Treaties, Agreements and Conventions that contemplate the rights of girls, adolescents, women and LGTTTBIQ + people. In addition, the Bank as the main person in charge must mainstream the gender perspective throughout the Framework to avoid gender blindness.

A worrying issue is the replacement of the Policy on Gender Equality in Development by PS 9. Here the Bank should maintain the validity of the Policy as a complement to PS 9 on Gender Equality. Finally, we emphasize the need for the IDB to incorporate the great diversity of gender-gender identities, since the MPAS does not mention LGTTTBIQ + people, but rather identifies them as sexual and gender minorities. Therefore, we insist that LGTTTBIQ + people are specifically enunciated to ensure visibility and recognition of their existence and rights.

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Observations on the second draft of the IDB Environmental and Social Policy Framework from a gender perspective

In early July, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) published the second draft of the Environmental and Social Policy Framework -MPAS- and began the second phase of the 30-day consultation process. This document was produced within this framework and contains observations and comments on the second draft of the MPAS from a gender perspective.

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