Regional VAW priority setting - Latin America and the Caribbean

As part of SVRIs efforts to help ensure limited, precious research resources are directed to priority research questions, building on the Global Shared Research Agenda, the SVRI commissioned Equipo FREE to facilitate the creation of a set or research priorities for Latin America and Caribbean (LAC).

After an extensive, participatory process, the LAC regional research agenda identified 23 questions 6 domains including four general questions:

Dimension 1. Characterization of violence against women and girls

Violence against women and girls in special conditions of vulnerability (LBTI+, with disabilities, indigenous people, Afro-descendants, etc.).
The COVID-19 crisis and the exacerbation of multiple forms of violence against women and girls.
Violence against women and girls on the internet and social networks, risk and protection factors.

Dimension 2. Strategies and actions to prevent and respond to violence against women and girls

Strategies/actions to prevent violence against women and girls with an intersectional approach.
Strategies/actions to prevent violence against women and girls in particular conditions of vulnerability (LBTI+, indigenous, disabled, migrants, Afro-descendants, etc.).
Strategies/actions to report and care for victims of violence against women and girls with an intersectional approach.

Dimension 3. Improvement of prevention and care interventions against violence against women and girls

Good practices in strategies and interventions to prevent, address and punish violence with the potential for replicability/scalability.
Adaptability and replicability/scalability of good practices in violence prevention and response interventions with groups of women and girls in conditions of special vulnerability.
Adaptability and replicability/scalability of good practices in violence against women and girls prevention and response interventions in specific contexts.

Dimension 4. Impact of policies and laws against violence against women and girls

Results and impacts of national policies for the prevention, care, punishment and reparation of violence against women and girls.
Compliance with national and international legislation on violence against women and girls.
Results and impacts of local policies for the prevention, care, punishment and reparation of violence against women and girls.

Dimension 5. Costs and economic impacts of violence against women and girls

Costs and economic impacts of violence against women and girls in the family environment.
Economic costs and impacts of violence against women and girls in State budgets.
Costs and economic impacts of violence against women and girls at the community level.

Dimension 6. Measurement of violence against women and girls

Innovative qualitative methodologies for measuring violence against women and girls from the intersectional approach.
Design of indicators to measure state compliance with international commitments for the prevention, care, punishment and reparation of violence against women and girls.
Design of indicators to measure violence against women and girls in different contexts.
Institutional/State capacities for the identification and measurement of cases of different types of violence against women and girls.

Four general priorities

Investigate femicide/femicide violence, institutional or state violence, and sexual violence both within the couple and outside, particularly sexual harassment.
The production of mixed-type research, which combines quantitative data with qualitative information to show and make visible VAWG and its different expressions.
Within the VAWG phenomenon, risk factors are the priority elements to be investigated.
In the age cycle, violence against girls and adolescents is the highest priority to be investigated.

Project lead

Equipo FREE (Feminist for Rights, Equality and Empowerment) is an international multidisciplinary team of consultants specialised in gender equality. Ana Landa Ugarte (Spain), Carmen Porras Gómez (Spain), Ivonne Argueta Vásquez (El Salvador) and Beiby Vaca Parada (Bolivia) are committed, dynamic and creative consultants in their approach to tackling the most pressing challenges related to gender equality and women’s empowerment.

They have twenty years of collective experience in the design, implementation, management and evaluation of gender equality programs and initiatives related to advancing gender equality and fighting violence against women and girls in Latin America and the Caribbean. Their professional and personal commitment to women’s rights stems from the firm conviction that ending all forms of discrimination against women and girls is not only a human right and act of justice, but it is crucial to accelerate sustainable development and the fight against growing totalitarianism. Equipo FREE works using an intersectional perspective to identify the shared spaces between gender and other structural dimensions that reinforce discrimination and exclusion.