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A Detailed Look: Latin America and the Caribbean
Gender discrimination in social institutions is low across Latin America and the Caribbean; overall, it is the region with the smallest range of gender disparity between the 22 countries. All ranked countries in the region are in the top half of the SIGI, and Paraguay is the top performer overall. Despite this strong performance, the low protection of women’s physical integrity is a concern.
Overall, Latin America and the Caribbean have made significant progress in promoting gender equality over the past 20 years, especially in education and in access to land. However, women still suffer from bias, mainly due to a deeply rooted sexism, social stereotypes and a traditional view of the family. Inequalities persist between men and women’s wage levels and career prospects, and domestic violence is not uncommon.
On the positive side, the region benefited from important awareness-raising campaigns led by women in the 1980s and 1990s. These helped develop a legal and institutional framework that guarantees some protection of women’s rights. In Paraguay, for example, many laws protecting women’s physical integrity were passed in the 1990s, and other improvements included better access to both land and bank loans. In Bolivia, 40% of land was held by women in 2004, versus 9% in 1990, and in Brazil, a quota system was recently introduced in rural development financing programmes.
However, challenges remain regarding equal ownership rights. Despite legislation supporting women’s financial independence, economic discrimination persists in everyday life, especially in rural areas. Women generally receive smaller plots of land than men, and their lack of financial resources means banks usually offer them smaller loans than they do to men.
Key issue: violence against women
Violence against women, both physical and psychological, remains a particular problem across Latin America and the Caribbean, and the phenomenon has increased in recent years. Guatemala, Jamaica, Brazil, and Haiti in particular are affected. In Haiti, eight in ten women are victims of domestic abuse.
The reasons why women are victimised are numerous: there are often difficulties in enforcing existing legislation, while courts can also stereotype women in judicial decisions; weak public security increases the risk of rape; and in many cases women who are raped fail to report it for fear of being stigmatised.
Despite these challenges, there is an increasing awareness of domestic violence. In Nicaragua, the number of cases reported rose by a third between 2001 and 2002. Equally in Ecuador there has been a marked increase in complaints relating to psychological violence.
