OAS :: IACHR :: Rapporteurship on the Rights of Women

Women

Functions and Initiatives

The IACHR Office of the Rapporteur on the Rights of Women develops specialized recommendations for the OAS Member States in order to enhance the respect for and guarantee of the human rights of women. It also advises the Commission on the handling of individual petitions and cases that allege human rights violations with gender-specific causes and consequences. The Office of the Rapporteur also conducts thematic studies, such as the one that led to the publication of the report entitled Access to Justice for Women Victims of Violence in the Americas, as well as studies on the situation of women’s rights in member countries. In this context, the Office of the Rapporteur carries out visits to the States; organizes seminars, workshops, and consultation meetings of experts; and conducts promotional activities.

Petitions and Cases involving Violations of Women’s Human Rights

The Office of the Rapporteur’s activities include assisting the Commission in the processing of individual petitions and cases alleging human rights violations with gender-specific causes and consequences. In that respect, the Office of the Rapporteur’s participation has been critical to the Commission’s taking a number of cases involving the rights of women to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. For example, in the Case of Claudia Ivette González et al. (Mexico), the first case centered on women’s rights in which the Inter-American Court issued a ruling, the petitioners alleged that the Mexican State had committed a series of human rights violations due to irregularities and inconsistencies in the investigation into the disappearance and death of three women in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. (See Admissibility Report 16/05 and the application filed with the Inter-American Court, Case No. 12.496, No. 12.497, and No. 12.498, Campo Algodonero: Claudia Ivette González, Esmeralda Herrera Monreal, and Laura Berenice Ramos Monárrez, Mexico, November 4, 2007.)

In addition, the IACHR, with input from the Office of the Rapporteur, filed applications with the Inter-American Court in cases involving women who were sexually assaulted by military agents of the Mexican State. (See Admissibility Report No. 94/06 and application, Case 12.580, Inés Fernández Ortega, Mexico, May 7, 2009; Report No. 93/06 and application, Valentina Rosendo Cantú et al., Case 12,579, Mexico, August 2, 2009.)

Initiative on Access to Justice for Women Victims of Violence in the Americas

Under this initiative, financed with the support of the government of Finland, activities have focused on the preparation of specialized recommendations to the OAS Member States to address discrimination against women, primarily in the exercise of their civil and political rights, and on the elimination of violence against women. One of the Office of the Rapporteur’s main initiatives has been to promote access to justice for women in situations of violence in the region, and as part of this effort, it prepared the thematic report entitled Access to Justice for Women Victims of Violence in the Americas. The Office of the Rapporteur is in the process of following up on the recommendations made in this report.

Initiative on Women’s Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights

In June 2009 the Office of the Rapporteur, with support from the government of Spain, began to implement a regional initiative designed to identify the main advances and challenges in the protection of women’s economic and social rights. In this context, Commissioner Luz Patricia Mejía and attorneys from the Office of the Rapporteur compiled information on the economic, social, and cultural rights of the women of Bolivia, during a visit to that country in June 2009. The Office of the Rapporteur is now carrying out a series of activities to compile information on discrimination against women in their access to resources, employment, and work opportunities; these activities include meetings with experts at the subregional and regional level and the circulation of a questionnaire to the States on these subjects.

Other Initiatives

With the support of the governments of Finland and Spain, the Office of the Rapporteur published the report Access to Maternal Health Services from a Human Rights Perspective. In addition, the Office of the Rapporteur has undertaken an initiative to compile qualitative and quantitative information designed to identify the main advances women have made and the challenges they face in exercising their rights in conditions of equality in the sphere of political participation, and it plans to publish a thematic report on the issue. As part of this effort, the Office of the Rapporteur has organized a series of information-gathering activities, including meetings with experts at the subregional and regional level and the circulation of a questionnaire to the States on these subjects.

Monitoring of the Situation of Women in Specific Countries

The Office of the Rapporteur’s priorities include the preparation and publication of reports on the situation of women in specific countries of the region. For example, the Office of the Rapporteur participated in onsite visits to Chile and Haiti in 2006 and 2007. As a result, in 2009 the Commission published two reports on the specific situation of women in those countries.

In its Report on the Rights of Women in Chile: Equality in the Family, Labor and Political Spheres, published in 2009, the Commission noted progress on women’s rights in Chile; however, it confirmed that both in law and in practice, various forms of discrimination against women persist in the family, political, and work spheres, and that these continue to be tolerated by society.

Likewise, in the report on The Right of Women in Haiti to be Free from Violence and Discrimination, also published in 2009, the Commission corroborated the obstacles that women and their relatives face in accessing effective judicial protection when they report such acts.