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Women's human rights and violence against women
International Models Project on Women's Rights (IMPOWR)
CIM is one of the partners on the IMPOWR project, an innovative initiative to establish a global collaborative research database on women's rights under law that will support the worldwide implementation of the principles underlying CEDAW and the Belém do Pará Convention.
Visit CIM "Women's rights under the law" project
Follow-up Mechanism to the Belém do Pará Convention (MESECVI)
The goal of the MESECVI is to analyze progress in the implementation of the Convention by its States Party, as well as persistent challenges to an effective response to violence against women.
Since its creation in 1928, the CIM has played a leading role in securing the human rights of women in the Americas. Its role in establishing and developing international law and public policies on women's citizenship and gender equality has led to the adoption of Inter-American Conventions on the Nationality of Women, the Civil Rights of Women, and the Political Rights of Women, as well as the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women (Belém do Pará Convention).
These binding legal frameworks have been fundamental instruments for the recognition of women as subjects of human rights and active agents of democracy. The countries of Latin America and the Caribbean have gradually adapted their national laws to the universal and inter-American legal framework on women’s rights. According to the OECD (2010), within the developing world, this region has made the most progress in formally recognizing the rights of women. In general terms, discrimination by social institutions in the region is low, although this has not yet translated into adequate protection of women’s physical integrity.
In spite of this progress, a number of obstacles remain to women’s full realization of their human rights as human beings; from women’s ability to access education, employment with equal pay and benefits, and health and other social services, to women’s ability to negotiate sexual relations, reproduction and to protect themselves from violence, including in their own homes.
In support of women’s full awareness and realization of their rights, as a necessary condition for democratic governance, sustainable development and lasting peace in the region, CIM has established the following key areas of action:
- Leading participatory and inclusive policy dialogue on policies to support women’s rights and citizenship,
- Strengthening capacity for integrated monitoring of the exercise of women’s rights,
- Supporting the full implementation of the Belém do Pará Convention through it Follow-up Mechanism (MESECVI), and
- Promoting an inter-cultural approach to human rights
