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Living with the enemy
Conxa Chaus Moreno
Coordinación de Mujeres del Paraguay
The Paraguayan Women's Coordination (Coordinación de Mujeres del Paraguay - CMP) launched a campaign this year for passage of a bill on domestic violence toward women that would provide urgent, effective regulation on domestic violence against women. The bill would establish a series of security measures ensuring the physical, psychological, sexual and economic integrity of women. This law is necessary because neither the old penal code nor the new one, which is about to go into effect, deal with the urgent nature of these cases.
Sexual and
reproductive rights
Family planning
services in the country are few. Nearly 65% of maternal
deaths are caused by poor attention before, during and
after childbirth. 20% of births are assisted by persons
who lack formal training and of these births, only 40%
take place under minimum health conditions. Paraguay
ranks fourth in the world in maternal mortality.
According to the United Nations Fund for Population
Activities (UNFPA), there are 300 maternal deaths per
100,000 births in Paraguay. Abortion and abortion-related
complications are responsible for 35% of these deaths and
therefore are the main cause. Maternal mortality affects
mainly low-income, destitute and illiterate women who
live in rural areas or in underprivileged conditions.
Many of them are indigenous women or adolescents whose
pregnancies were not planned.
In spite of this
spine-chilling data, the government is not even
considering a change of attitude. The former president
Juan Carlos Wasmosy made a commitment to the Catholic
Church to maintain his position against de-criminalising
abortion and the new government has given no signs of
advancing along a different path. Prohibitionist
regulations on voluntary pregnancy interruption are
established in the penal code. Hence cases continue to be
recorded of persecution, detention and conviction of
women who, in the exercise of their liberty, decide to
abort.
Additional obstacles to
adequate health care suited to women's needs are lack of
political will at national and local levels to guarantee
provision of services sensitive to gender inequity, and
legislative gaps on health issues and sexual and
reproductive rights of women. Lack of access to
transportation, inadequate service hours, and poor
distribution of health resources are factors limiting
access to these services.
Sexual and reproductive
health mean not only the absence of disease, but also
full enjoyment of this health in relation to
psychological, cultural and contextual aspects. To
achieve this aim, State advice, information and support
are required. Early sex education implies safer
maternity, and the knowledge of sexuality itself is a
component of human development and self-esteem.
Rape
According to data
provided by the national police, the number boys and
girls aged zero to nine who are victims of rape has
doubled. Child rape constituted 9% of total rapes in
1996 and 16% of rapes in 1997. While the number of boy
rape victims was constant, the number of girls raped rose
scandalously. Most rape victims are women (91.13%).
34% of rapes are committed by acquaintances and 20% by
neighbours. According to the Crime Policy and Criminology
Office, 5,000 women a year in Asuncion do not report sex
offenses (ranging from fondling to rape).
According to the Office
of the Public Prosecutor for Minors, in cases of rape
committed against minors forensic surgeons, often with
complicity of the victims' mothers, prepare reports that
do not reflect the truth. Very often a medical board has
to be called on. In these cases, the victims undergo
double distress—the rape itself and then the trauma
of repeating what happened to medical staff, the police
and the judge. 50% of complaints of mistreatment of
children involve sexual abuse. For each recorded
complaint there are six or seven that are not reported.
30% of the complaints regarding abuse concern girls aged
10 to 13 who are pregnant. The abusers are fathers and
stepfathers. More girls are mistreated than boys, and the
abuse is usually sexual. Boys suffer corporal and
psychological aggression. There is a clear lack of
national prevention programmes.
The administration
of justice is stuck in the past. Sentences handed down
are discriminatory, full of stereotypes and with negative
repercussions on women who are victims of crimes against
their sexual anatomy.
Some progress has been
made regarding treatment of rape victims. Starting in
August 1998, the police hospital takes care of all cases
of rape recorded in the metropolitan area and the Central
Department of Asuncion. This centralisation hastens
medical diagnosis and relieves victims from disagreeable
time spent on formalities required for medical
prescription and legal action. It also relieves them of
being exposed to more than one pre-diagnosis, as has been
the case so far.
Domestic
violence
Women are most exposed
to mistreatment in the home, and the State must establish
serious policies to deal with this problem. According to
statistics, 25% of all violent crimes take place in the
home. Among such crimes, physical aggression against
women by the men with whom they live is notorious. 70% of
the total number of complaints lodged in 1997 at the
Complaints Office that reports to the Government
Attorney's Office came from women who had been battered
within the family. Many women refuse to lodge or to
maintain complaints in public offices. All complaints
lodged are followed up by the public criminal prosecutor,
even when they are withdrawn, since once received they
become public penal action crimes.
According to the latest
National Demographic and Reproductive Health Survey, 13%
of Paraguayan women have at some time in their lives been
mistreated. The percentage increases with age and drops
with years of schooling. Many (21.7%) stated that they
had heard or seen their parents mistreat each other when
they were children or adolescents. According to
complaints lodged in Asuncion alone, 8,545 women (between
January 1996 and December 1997) were victims of domestic
violence.
People continue to
think that domestic violence occurs primarily in
underprivileged and poor families. To break out of this
stereotype, it is enough to read the newspapers and to
see cases such as that of a city councilman from Guairá
who was accused of inflicting corporal wounds on his
wife. Judging from the response to this case, such acts
of violence against women are not considered relevant:
this councilman is visited in the prison by his fellow
councilmen and, so far, neither the municipal council nor
his political party have made a statement.
Sex work
A bill for regulation
of sex workers, male and female, has been presented in
Asuncion. The bill would also regulate the authorisation
of brothels, motels and nightclubs. The bill was
discussed by the municipal council, and collaboration was
requested from associations working on the subject and
neighbourhood defense associations. For the moment,
discussion on the bill has been suspended.
According to
associations of sex workers, parts of the bill violate
basic rights. First, by establishing that sex workers
may locate themselves only in specific areas ("red
light zones"), the bill violates various rights such
as the freedom and right to transit, and it is a clear
case of discrimination vis-à-vis other
professions.
Secondly, as regards
brothels and places where this profession is exercised,
the bill does not take into account the fact that female
and male workers are often exploited and therefore
themselves the victims of violations of constitutional
prohibitions against slavery and other forms of
servitude. Before dealing with the conditions of these
premises, their legality should be considered.
Thirdly, the bill would
require that workers be authorised by the municipality to
exercise their profession. For this purpose, they would
have to undergo a medical examination that is renewed
every two weeks. Carriers of HIV would not be allowed to
exercise this profession. This regulation is
discriminatory vis-à-vis other workers who do not
need such authorisation. Furthermore, having to declare
something confidential and personal would go against
individual privacy and the proposed system of identity
cards would stigmatize the individual.
According to UNICEF,
75% of sex workers are minors and 42% are under 16 years
of age. Poverty has been identified as a main cause
of lack of protection, exclusion, family de-structuring
and prostitution. Prostitution of children and
adolescents occurs in a context of psychological,
economic and social violence. Therefore, any regulation
of sex work should consider the context in which it is
taking place.
| A
broken country Following the period of
euphoria in the first post-authoritarian years,
there is now a general perception by citizens
that, beyond the liberties, too many links with
the past still remain. These links are not only
political. Socially and economically, the power
elites did not envisage substantial social and
economic reforms. The distance between opulence
-in many cases a product of wealth obtained with
impunity- and poverty and misery only increases.
«The richest
20% in rural areas receives incomes 71 times that
of the poorest 20%.... This does not only mean
that poverty affects rural areas to a greater
extent, but also that it is in rural areas where
there is greater inequality of income
distribution.» (CPES- Centro Paraguayo de
Estudios Sociológicos-Paraguayan Centre of
Sociologic Studies, 1996: p.17). The minimum wage
has fallen by 30% since 1989. About 50% of urban
workers receive less than the minimum wage.
Under-employment affects at least 20% of the
population and open unemployment grew by 63%
between 1995 and 1997, from 5.3% to 8.2%. This
evolution of the labour market is a result of
stagnation of the economy, which grew by only
1.4% in 1996.
The informal
sector continues to be the social buffer.
Paraguay ranks third among Latin American
countries in growth of informal labour for
1990-1995 with an annual rate of 7.2%, behind
Venezuela and Panama. Furthermore, according to
the Economic Commission for Latin America and the
Caribbean (ECLAC), in the five years mentioned
above, the countries where income disparity
increased most were Colombia, Mexico, Paraguay
and Venezuela. Paraguay is also one of the
countries with the lowest average growth of its
GDP—barely 3%. Given the high rate of
population growth, this is equal to stagnation.
Per capita GDP is among the lowest in Latin
America, outranking only Ecuador and Bolivia, and
is barely 56% of the average for the region.
A mere 29% of
Paraguay's population has secondary education,
ranking it only above Peru. Only 18% of the
population have social security assistance. 64%
of the homes have at least one unsatisfied basic
need. 25% of national territory is in the hands
of 51 landowners.
To finish this
picture of a socially failed country, rampant
corruption, a product of unceasing impunity,
accounts for 20% of the public sector's budget
according to the 1996 Report by the General
Comptroller of the Republic. No case of major
corruption has ended with those responsible being
sentenced by justice. To this jigsaw puzzle of
democracy's gray zones, we must add the real
increase of common offenses accompanied by
violence. This is leading to the concept of
liberty being associated with citizen insecurity.
Less than 10%
of the population believes in the judiciary. The
same holds for the legislature. Seventy-five
percent of Paraguayan people do not believe that
corruption is being fought. The main problem
perceived is employment (34%), followed by
education (18%); corruption has started appearing
in polls (11%). (Catholic University, 1997).
Unless measures
are taken within the next ten years to implement
a strategy for reformulation of the development
model, and unless decisive and effective action
is taken against corruption, the country will be
immersed in «low-quality democracy» surrounded
by an ocean of exclusion with impunity for
cleptocracy (government of thieves). It would be
a democracy that in the best case would fulfil
formal requisites of the rule of law, but would
be totally empty of social content and public
ethics.
Extracted from
Carlos Martini, «Análisis de coyuntura;
transición inconclusa o la inercia de la
continuidad» in Human rights in Paraguay
1997. Paraguay: 1997.
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