Paraguay's Congressmen Gut Gender Violence Bill

Wednesday will not be remembered in Paraguay's history as a victory for women's rights: On this day lawmakers gutted a bill intended to address gender violence in the country—even removing the word "gender"—and rejected a US$20 million credit offer that would have funded the Ministry of Women.

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Miriam Gonzalez, from the group Paraguay Coordination of Women, told teleSUR that conservative sectors believe gender studies are still an “ideology." These elements pressured lawmakers to not only remove the word "gender" from legislation dealing with gender violence—helping ensure its victims remain "invisible," according to Gonzalez—but scrapped a measure that would have allowed women suffering the consequences of dangerous and illegal abortions to seek free medical attention at hospitals. That decision, Gonzalez noted, comes despite the fact that “a quarter of women's deaths in the country are due to consequences of unsafe abortions."

Nevertheless, the lawmakers did approve a measure to make femicide—the murder of women—a specific crime punished with tougher sentences of up to 30 years in prison. Paraguay is one of the last countries in the region to pass such legislation.

“Violence against women has risen by 32 percent over the past year,” said lawmaker Rocio Casco, head of the legislative commission of gender equality, who wrote the femicide bill with the support of Paraguay's women organizations and U.N. Women.

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From 2011 to 2015, according to the official estimate, there was one case of femicide every 15 days, rising to one every 11 days in 2016. Across Latin America, the United Nations has recorded a surge of femicides in recent years, with only 2 percent of the cases ending with a prison sentence.

But on the same day, senators also rejected a US$20 million loan from the Inter-American Development Bank that would have mainly benefited a program implemented by the Ministry of Women.

The ministry planned to fund a direct phone line between a women's support center and the national police, as well as training sessions for police officers, who are often criticized for downplaying and dismissing complaints of violence reported by women.

Paraguay's Senate and House of Representatives are overwhelmingly composed of men, with Paraguay coming in as the fourth worst country in Latin America in terms of women in public office.