UN Praises Uruguay's Efforts to Fight Violence Against Women

The United Nations agency for gender equality, U.N. Women, highlighted Uruguay’s legal framework to combat gender-based violence against women.

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According to Magdalena Furtado, head of U.N. Women in Uruguay, the Latin American region has been a “pioneer” in identifying and taking measures against gender-based violence.

During her speech at the event Scope and Challenges of the Implementation of the Law of Gender-based Violence Against Women, organized by Uruguay’s Foreign Ministry, Furtado explained 22 of 33 countries adhered to the 1994 Belem do Para Convention to prevent, sanction and eradicate violence against women approving “first generation” laws, focused on the protection of the rights of the victims and survivors of gender violence.

Uruguay, she said is one of 11 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean that have approved “second generation” laws to widen their scope to the “different manifestations of violence in the private and public realm,” and include integral institutional response.

The U.N. study Commitment to Action: Policies to Eradicate Violence Against Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, published in late 2017, revealed that Uruguay and Ecuador were the last two countries to approve “second generation” law and that 18 countries approved specific sanctions for femicides.

According to Furtado the total number of femicides is not significant, however, the number of femicides in relation to population is. She explained that in Uruguay last year there were 30 femicides in Uruguay with a population of 3.4 million, while Chile, with a population of 18 million had 34.