Spain assumed on June 23, in Madrid, the Presidency of the Ibero-American Initiative to Prevent and Eliminate Violence against Women (IIPEVCM), whose general objective is to contribute to the elimination of all forms of violence against women in Latin America from the construction and consolidation of a common frame of reference.
The act of transfer of the Presidency, from the Ministry for Women of the Dominican Republic to the Ministry of Equality of Spain, was attended by the Minister for Women of the Dominican Republic, Mayra Jiménez; the Minister of Equality of Spain, Irene Montero, and the Ibero-American Secretary General, Andrés Allamand.
Mayra Jiménez, outgoing President of the Initiative, emphasized the importance of articulating common strategies that allow progress in closing gaps and preventing violence that affects millions of women, adolescents, and girls in the world. In this regard, he mentioned the problem of economic and patrimonial violence suffered by women and reinforced the work carried out for the construction of strategies to strengthen access to rights, within the framework of the guidelines of the Initiative, as a result of the commitment and will of the different countries, embodied in the Santo Domingo Declaration of the IV Ibero-American Gender Conference "Towards an inclusive, democratic and sustainable Ibero-America" held in 2023 in the Dominican Republic. In addition, he focused on some imminent challenges for strengthening the Initiative, such as continuing to add countries and the motivation to comply with their financial contributions in order to give it sustainability over time and meet the objectives set in future planning.
Minister Montero, from the incoming Presidency of the Initiative, highlighted the value of feminist public policies to save lives, alluding to the violence suffered against the Mirabal sisters, as well as the international alliances generated between Ibero-American countries, which is necessary to care, protect and strengthen precisely because they place feminism, the main democratizing movement, as one of the pillars of the fraternal relationship of the countries and of the capacity to guarantee human rights. Likewise, she stressed that the Initiative constitutes the first official space for Ibero-American dialogue that addresses all forms of violence against women, including political violence, essential for international alliances to think of solutions to guarantee that women's lives are free of violence. . Finally, she mentioned some challenges such as growth and the ability to unite the efforts of more countries and to place the fight against violence against women, the elimination and construction of free lives as a central objective of democracies and Ibero-American societies.
For his part, Andrés Allamand, highlighted that through this Initiative a work was launched that attacks a deep problem, whose approach requires different perspectives. She highlighted the urgency of advancing in the equal and substantive participation of women to strengthen their economic and social independence in order to put an end to the multiple forms of violence they suffer due to gender, as equality between women and men, in addition to being a fundamental right , is an essential pillar for the construction of peaceful, prosperous and sustainable societies. He emphasized the violence that persists in the region today, with the aggravating numbers of femicides, which shows the inability of societies to remedy a serious problem at its root. At the end of his speech, he encouraged to continue: promoting laws with a gender perspective; financing programs to close economic and social gaps; continue promoting initiatives to redress and prevent abuses; as well as to continue promoting programs that promote co-responsibility, paying attention to the value of care.
Background
The Ibero-American Initiative to Prevent and Eliminate Violence against Women arises from the XXVI Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State and Government held in Antigua (Guatemala) in 2018, and was finally approved at the XXVII Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State and Government of State and Government in Andorra, in 2021. It has 3 specific objectives:
- Strengthen public policies and generate knowledge about the magnitude of violence against women in Latin America;
- Strengthen care, protection and comprehensive repair services, from a multidisciplinary perspective;
- Prevent and raise awareness about the matter and the creation of information collection tools.
It is currently made up of 13 of the 22 Ibero-American countries: Andorra, Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Spain, Mexico, Panama, Portugal, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay (10 members); Ecuador, El Salvador and Peru (guests).
Video summary of the Transfer here – @MinisteriodeIgualdad
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