– Forcing a woman to bear a child alone, forcing her to assume motherhood because the contraceptive method failed or normalizing teenage pregnancy are examples of gender-based violence.
– The lack of legislation and access to safe abortion violates women and people with gestational capacity by restricting their autonomy and access to opportunities.
– Abortion is a possibility to break the circles of structural violence.
Approximately 33 million unwanted pregnancies occur each year worldwide, according to WHO. Women become pregnant unwanted for a variety of reasons that are not of their own making, such as rape, failure, shortages or unmet need for contraceptive methods, and lack of access to family planning services in general. In low-income countries, lack of contraception affects 6 out of 10 women, according to the Ipas LAC report “10 Public Health Facts to Understand the Importance of Decriminalizing Abortion.
– 58% of indigenous women
– 64% of rural women
“Forced or unintended pregnancies are a form of gender violence, since only women and people with the capacity to bear children face them. These are the result, among other factors, of deficient comprehensive sexuality education, insufficient access to contraceptive methods, and physical, verbal or manipulative aggression to have sexual relations. These pregnancies are a consequence of contexts that violate girls, adolescents, women or people with the capacity to bear children,” said María Antonieta Alcalde Castro, director of Ipas LAC.
Ipas Mexico, in the document “Violencia sexual y embarazo infantil en México: un problema de salud pública y derechos humanos”(Sexual violence and child pregnancy in Mexico: a public health and human rights problem), shows how pregnant adolescents, compared to those who become pregnant after the age of 20, are more likely to be unemployed, have no health insurance [1] and not receive an education.
These data are related to structural violence, which is the set of oppressions generated by social structures, such as politics, laws, religion, cultural norms, among others, that benefit certain social groups while representing disadvantages for others, such as racism, discrimination and exclusion. This is reflected in violence against women and girls, which affects to a greater extent those who live in contexts of high inequality, extreme violence and limited access to services and justice (ECLAC, 2021).
This violence also limits their ability to decide if and when they want a pregnancy, as well as their ability to seek health services, which impacts their sexual, reproductive, perinatal and maternal health. According to the Ipas Mexico document, exacerbated levels of fear and control, as well as violence in their intimate partner relationships, are associated with an inability to access contraceptive services that would allow them to prevent unwanted pregnancy.
A 2005 WHO multi-country study on women’s health and domestic violence showed that women who experienced intimate partner violence had higher levels of unwanted pregnancy compared to those who were not in a violent relationship.
Gender violence in Latin America and the Caribbean
The ultimate expression of gender-based violence is femicide, but there are a series of other forms of violence that, on a daily basis, undermine women’s possibilities of accessing a life free of violence. Gender violence is also the lack of protection and violation of their reproductive rights. The lack of prevention and attention to this type of harm re-victimizes them and confronts them with other types of violent practices in a chronic and simultaneous manner.
In 2022, Brazil and Mexico topped the list of Latin American and Caribbean countries with the highest number of femicide cases, the former with 1,437 and the latter with 976. Third place went to Honduras with 309, this country also had the highest rate of violent gender-related deaths of women, that is, the ratio between the number of femicides per 100,000 women is the highest in the region, according to ECLAC’s Gender Equality Observatory.
At least 4,050 women in Latin America and the Caribbean were victims of femicide in 2022.
Women’s access to a life free of violence is a right that implies that no action or omission, public or private, should cause them harm or suffering of any kind: psychological, physical, patrimonial, economic or sexual; and safe abortion is a possibility to bring them closer to this right and to respect their autonomy, their physical, psychological and moral integrity. Without discrimination and without gender-based stereotypes.
“States have the obligation to guarantee the enjoyment of all reproductive rights, including self-determination over motherhood and access to legal, safe and free abortion. The lack of guarantees for the exercise of these rights violates women and puts them in situations that endanger their lives, health and freedom,” said María Antonieta Alcalde Castro, director of Ipas LAC.
To learn about abortion legislation in the region, how to access a procedure or request information from organizations that provide support, we invite you to consult our Interactive Map of Access to Abortion in Latin America.
Coordinadora de vinculación con medios: Irene Vázquez Gudiño [email protected] - - -
Sources:
– World Health Organization (2005). WHO Multi-country Study on Women’s Health and Domestic Violence: First Results on Prevalence, Health Events and Women’s Responses to Domestic Violence.
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