The legal situation in Peru is very clear: Violence against women is indictable. Nevertheless the offence is often not reported or denounced. Women are ashamed, fear reprisal, or the loss of their economic security.
The fact that violence against women is not only a physical and psychological problem ought to be evident. International studies clearly demonstrate that violence against women also causes high financial costs. It charges, among others, the health care system and causes major economic loss, not only for the women and their families, but also for the businesses at which the women are employed.
While there are studies that attempt to quantify the costs for businesses, they primarily estimate the effects of partner violence in North America and Australia. Therefore, results are not directly applicable to Peru. The labor market structure in Peru is fundamentally different from those in North America or Australia. Additionally, violence against women is – in a very male-centered society like Peru’s – very widespread and barely ostracized by the community. A further shortcoming of these studies is that they examine solely partial aspects of the consequences of violence for private businesses. As far as is known, no study has until now investigated the problem of ‘Consequences of Violence for businesses’ in its entirety.
Still, one thing that has been brought to light by every single one of the analyses: Violence against women causes enormously high costs for businesses, reaching billions in all countries. The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates the annual cost for the United States to be up to 67 billion US dollars.
This problematic situation was the catalyst for the implementation of the present study in Peru. Its ambitious goal was to calculate the total costs for Peruvian businesses, including all of the cost-causing effects of violence against women. In this sense, the study appears to be entering uncharted territory. Moreover, it was focused exclusively on the acts of violence committed by partners and ex-partners, so-called intimate partner violence.
Category: | Publications |
Country: | Peru |
Language: | English |
Year: | 2014 |
Institution: | Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) |
Author: | Daniel Valera Loza, Christine Brendel, Sabine Gürtner |