Americas: Regional Conference on Women must act as a safeguard against attacks on gender equality

The XVI Regional Conference on Women, the main United Nations forum on gender in Latin America and the Caribbean, will be held in Tlatelolco, Mexico City, from 12 to 15 August 2025. Thirty years after the adoption of the Beijing action plan, which established a global consensus for the achievement of gender equality, the meeting comes at a time when there are urgent pending issues in the region and an increasingly hostile environment for women’s rights.

“This Regional Conference comes at a crucial moment: the voices of the women who are fighting for advances in their rights are more important than ever. It is time to move forward and for states to ratify and strengthen their  commitment to the rights of women, girls and LGBTIQ+ people, with firm agreements on monitoring mechanisms and urgent and specific actions,” said Astrid Valencia, research director for the Americas at Amnesty International.

The voices of the women who are fighting for advances in their rights are more important than ever. It is time to move forward and for states to ratify and strengthen their  commitment to the rights of women, girls and LGBTIQ+ people.

Astrid Valencia, research director for the Americas at Amnesty International.

The conference will follow up on the Buenos Aires Commitment of 2022, supported by feminist networks, that recognized the right of all persons “to provide and receive care and to exercise self-care based on the principles of equality, universality and social and gender co-responsibility”. It also recognized that this responsibility “must be shared by people of all sectors of society, families, communities, businesses and the State”.

This progress stemmed from an undeniable reality: on average, women in the region dedicate 38 hours per week to unpaid care work, while men dedicate only 16. This inequality restricts women’s autonomy, confines them to precarious employment and prevents them from fully accessing labour rights and social protection, including access to healthcare, rest and retirement.

But progress in public care policies has been painstakingly slow since then. Even in countries such as Uruguay or Chile, where care systems exist, there is a need for sustainable investment based on fiscal justice and monitoring and accountability mechanisms with the participation of civil society. There is also a lack of recognition for community and territorial care work, which is key in contexts of structural discrimination against Indigenous, Afro-descendant and migrant women, women farmers and women living in rural and impoverished urban areas, more so in the face of the climate emergency. States must promote the financing, sustainability and structuring of community and territorial care work through public policies that are fair and respect women’s autonomy.

“The unfair distribution of care work lies at the heart of structural discrimination against women. Progress in care policies must go hand in hand with the eradication of all violence against women. The delay of over 30 years in ensuring that the basic right to live free from fear and discrimination is respected is a debt that must be urgently repaid,” added Valencia.

Progress in care policies must go hand in hand with the eradication of all violence against women. The delay of over 30 years in ensuring that the basic right to live free from fear and discrimination is respected is a debt that must be urgently repaid.

Astrid Valencia, research director for the Americas at Amnesty International

The Regional Conference on Women must set a path for eradicating the violence and discrimination that women and girls continue to suffer. According to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), at least 3,897 women were victims of femicide in 2023 in the region. Many other women have been disappeared, some forcibly. It is women who are primarily responsible for searching for disappeared persons and demanding justice amid criminal violence, lack of social protection and indifference from the authorities, as in the cases of Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela.

Similarly, more than 30% of  deadly attacks recorded by the LGBTI non-violence network in 2023 were against trans women, with Brazil, Mexico and Colombia being the most dangerous countries. In Argentina, violence against LGBTI+ people has intensified.

According to the United Nations Population Fund, Latin America and the Caribbean is the only region in the world where childbirth among girls is increasing, mainly as a result of sexual violence and lack of essential health services. Comprehensive sexual education has made little progress, with setbacks in Costa Rica, Argentina and Paraguay brought about by the defunding of public policies and a weakening of the educational curriculum. The situation in Haiti is critical, with a human rights crisis where sexual violence against girls and women in Port-au-Prince and surrounding regions is widespread.

Although decisions have been taken to improve access to abortion in Chile, Colombia and Mexico, barriers to reproductive autonomy persist in the region, even where programmes for decriminalization exist. Peru, Brazil and Argentina have taken measures and initiatives to restrict abortion, and total criminalization prevails in the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua and Suriname. Access to maternal, sexual and reproductive health remains limited for migrant women, in particular Venezuelan women in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, and pregnant Haitian women in the Dominican Republic, whose lives and health are at serious risk from racist migration policies.

All of this is happening in an increasingly hostile environment for defending human rights. The closure of civic spaces, especially in Argentina, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela, results in direct attacks on women human rights defenders and places the burden of reporting abuses and seeking justice on their shoulders, especially those with relatives imprisoned for political reasons.

The Regional Conference on Women can be followed online through ECLAC’s official channels. A civil society statement agreed by feminist networks will be made on 12 August. Amnesty International will join women across the region to carry out advocacy, communication and mobilization actions calling on states to adopt a commitment that cements and deepens gender equality in Tlatelolco.

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