Through the adoption of international and regional treaties and political declarations, various countries have taken on a commitment to prevent and eradicate VAWP and VAWE. Recent developments in this area have taken place in Latin America and the Caribbean, where a number of regional instruments taking into account the fight against VAWE have been created in the last decades, including the 1994 Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence Against Women (also known as Belém do Pará Convention), the 2007 Quito Declaration, the 2013 Santo Domingo Consensus, the 2016 Montevideo Strategy and the 2016 Organization of American States’ Declaration on Political Harassment and Violence Against Women.[1]

National legislators can promote legal reform to prevent, protect against and punish acts of VAWE, through three main strategies:

1) Adopting new specific legislation as special stand-alone laws to address VAWP.

So far, Bolivia is the only Latin American country that has passed stand-alone legislation to address VAWP. Ecuador, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Peru have also considered passing specific legislation on this matter. 

2) Including VAWP in existing laws on the elimination of violence against women.

Latin America also offers examples of countries that included VAWP in their elimination of violence against women (EVAW) laws. This is the case of Mexico’s 2007 General Law on Women’s Life Free from Violence, as well as EVAW laws in El Salvador (2011) and Panama (2013). 

3) Reforming electoral and penal codes.

Amendments to electoral or penal codes can also include provisions to prevent, protect against or punish acts of VAWE. In Ecuador, where the Congress rejected specific VAWE legislation in 2011, the 2012 electoral code introduced a provision according to which the systematic harassment of candidates or elected officials is subjected to penal code sanctions.[1] 

Despite these legislative advances, especially in Latin America, legal instruments combatting VAWE are generally insufficiently implemented, funded or enforced, as acknowledged by experts in the Expert Group Meeting held in March 2018 by UN Women, the OHCHR and the SRVAW.[2] An effective implementation of these legislative developments may require gender sensitivity of the adjudicating body, presence of women adjudicators, access to formal complaint processes and enforcement laws.[3] 

In several countries, EMBs have developed regulatory and normative frameworks to address VAWP and VAWE. This is the case of Mexico, where the National Electoral Institute, the Federal Electoral Tribunal, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office for Electoral Crimes, the National Women’s Institute and other agencies published in 2016 the Protocol to Respond to Violence Against Women in Politics. This is the most comprehensive protocol in Latin America. In other countries, such as Ecuador and Macedonia, EMBs have also made efforts to prevent, protect against and punish acts of VAWE through the adoption of guidelines.[4] 

Legislated codes of conduct seek to regulate the behavior of a wide range of stakeholders in the electoral process, including political parties, independent candidates, political movements and the media. They can be binding, establish sanctions and include provisions that specifically address VAWE.[5] 

Example: Although the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) does not address specifically VAWP, its Committee has tackled this issue in its concluding observations of State Parties’ reporting. The Committee has addressed VAWP in six cases since 2012, including The Bahamas (2012), Togo (2012), Bolivia (2015), Honduras (2016), Costa Rica (2017) and Italy (2017).[6] 

Example: The follow-up Mechanism to the Belém do Pará Convention, known as MESECVI, is a permanent and multilateral evaluation methodology and a Committee of Experts that allows analyzing progress in the implementation of the Convention by State Parties. In 2015, MESECVI issued a Declaration on Violence and Political Harassment against Women that led to the development of a “model law” on VAWP. The Model Law provides a broad definition of VAWP, in line with international and Inter-American legal frameworks, extending protection to all women who participate in the public sphere, including elected and appointed women, human rights defenders, etc. Further steps for the Model Law included “distribution to State Parties (2018-2020); releasing a Model Protocol of Political Parties to Prevent, Punish and Eradicate Violence against Women in Political Life (2018); publishing a Guide for Judges with a Gender Perspective in the Electoral Field: the case of Violence against Women in Political Life (2018); and training Electoral Courts on VAWP (1^st edition Mexico, 2018).”[7] 

Example: In Bolivia, the Law 243 against the Harassment of and Political Violence against Women was adopted in 2012. It does not only apply to women in public office, but also to any women exercising a political/public role. This law categorizes acts of harassment and political violence as “slight”, “serious” and “very serious”, establishing sanctions for each category, which makes it possible to clearly identify these acts and their corresponding sanctions. In cases of harassment and political violence, a report can be made by the survivor, her family members or any natural or legal person before competent authorities, under three different pathways: administrative, criminal and constitutional. The criminal route responds to crime categories recognized in the Bolivian Penal Code and does not allow for conciliation, in order to prevent further pressure on victims.[8] During her intervention at the 2018 Expert Group Meeting, Katia Uriona, President of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal of Bolivia, “highlighted the important milestone of approving the Law’s regulatory decree in 2016, which clarified many aspects of implementation and the role of different actors.”[9] 

Example: In Nepal, the Code of Conduct includes regulation that applies to four different types of stakeholders: 1) candidates, political parties and other “concerned persons”; 2) National and local governments and public institutions; 3) government/public employees; and 4) media, NGOs and election observers. Rules regarding women’s participation vary depending on each stakeholder. According to Article 4, candidates and political parties are instructed not to get involved in any activity that “incites hatred or enmity amongst […] genders”. Media members must disseminate information without bias, giving “equal opportunities to political parties and candidates” without disrupting “the relation and harmony amongst different […] sexes”, in conformity with Article 14. Observers must respect different sexes and remain impartial during the electoral process, in accordance to Article 16.[10] 

Example: In Chad, Article 4 of the Code of Conduct forbids the use of violence in all its forms. Its signatories commit not to maintain, finance or use militias, auto-defense or paramilitary groups for their own protection, threaten or commit acts of violence and harassment. They also commit to exercise restraint in their speeches, writings, attitudes and behavior during the electoral process, rejecting the use of inflammatory and abusive comments inciting violence or ethnic, religious or gender-based hatred.[11]