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The Invisible Costs of Violence against Women for Ecuadorian Micro-enterprises

The Invisible Costs of Violence against Women for Ecuadorian Micro-enterprises

Violence against women does not only affect the health and lives of women around the world but also causes vast invisible, yet all the more serious, costs in the corporate sector, regardless of the size of each business.

To depict these costs and impacts on micro-enterprises run by Ecuadorian women, the Regional Program ComVoMujer of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) commissioned the present study. The study incorporates data from the 2011 National Survey on Gender Violence of the Ecuadorian Institute of Statistics (INEC) as well as the 2009 National Economic Census in Ecuador (CENEC). The data is evaluated in order to provide – for the first time nationwide – statistical information on the prevalence and incidence of violence against female micro-entrepreneurs in Ecuador.

95 % of Ecuadorian businesses are micro-enterprises, and more than half of them are owned by women. It is so all the more alarming that according to this study, 50 out of 100 female entrepreneurs are victims of partner violence. This does not only negatively affect the profitability and productivity of their businesses, but essentially endangers their existence. Additionally, this violence creates costs which adversely affect the economic development of the country since significant private and public investment flows into this important economic sector.

We hope that this publication will contribute to and create incentives for private and public institutions to recognize the negative impacts of gender-based violence and to act accordingly – in order to significantly take part in preventing and combating violence against women.

Category:Publications
Country:Ecuador
Language:English
Year:2014
Institution:Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ)
Author:Christine Brendel, Viviana Maldonado

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