Gender Equity: A Necessity to Advance Human Rights in the Americas

WOLA

Team WOLA

This piece is part of the series, A Human Rights Agenda for the Next U.S. Administration, outlining WOLA’s priorities for U.S. policies centered on human rights. As the United States prepares for a new administration, WOLA remains committed to justice, dignity, and the fundamental rights of individuals across the Americas. In this series, we highlight the critical human rights issues that should be at the forefront of policy discussions during this pivotal time.

Structural inequality and discrimination on the basis of gender limit access to human rights for millions of people in the Americas, holding back the region’s potential for peace, shared prosperity, human security, and an end to forced migration and displacement. WOLA works to address inequality and the denial of human rights on the basis of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and other intersecting identities. By collaborating with partners throughout the region and uplifting the voices of activists at the front lines of today’s fights for gender equity and justice, we aim to inform inclusive policy-making that helps advance human rights for all.

We advocate for U.S. policies that further the following objectives:

Advance women’s human rights and eradicate stereotypes, discrimination, and violence against all women

Stereotypes about women and their role in society underpin longstanding patterns of discrimination in the public, private, and family spheres. Despite advances in legal frameworks, women across the region continue to face inequality, barriers to exercising their rights, and alarming levels of gender-based violence. Gender-based discrimination intersects with other forms of discrimination based on skin color, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, migrant status, language, and others to place many women in situations of greater inequality. In addition, governments with authoritarian tendencies have sought to roll back women’s rights and eliminate gender perspectives from public policy.

Women play a leading role in the fight for human rights and democracy. Latin America’s feminist movements have been at the forefront of legal and other victories that protect human rights, while women human rights defenders and community leaders are protagonists in efforts to address ongoing situations of violence and social injustice. 

Against this backdrop, the U.S. should work with governments and civil society organizations in the region to implement policies and programs that:

  • Increase and improve evidence-based actions to counter harmful stereotypes about women, address patterns of discrimination against them, and close gender gaps in all spheres.
  • Reduce violence against women, including sexual violence and femicide.
  • Address specific barriers faced by women in exercising their human rights and advance sexual and reproductive rights. 
  • Support women’s leadership in defending human rights, peace, and democracy efforts, and protect activists who face risks for defending women’s human rights.

Promote equity and end discrimination and violence based on sexual orientation and diverse gender identities 

Despite growing legal recognitions of the rights of people with diverse sexual orientations and/or gender identities, discrimination against these populations remains pervasive and varied, and many LGBTQIA+ people continue to face both legal and practical obstacles to accessing their human rights. Violence is among the most serious expressions of discrimination. Several of the region’s countries place among those with the highest reported numbers of murders of trans individuals, with trans women and people of color at especially great risk. 

Of particular concern is the emergence of governments in some countries that demonstrate both anti-democratic and anti-LGBTQIA+ tendencies. In recent years, some political leaders have taken measures to remove recognition of gender-diverse identities from public policy. Such measures increase risks to diverse populations while also reinforcing harmful stereotypes about the roles of women and men in society. 

The incoming U.S. administration should ensure that its foreign policy and international cooperation:

  • Combat discrimination against LGBTQIA+ populations in law and practice, working with partner governments and civil society.
  • Support and protect LGBTQIA+ organizations, activists, and others working to defend human rights.
  • Reduce violence based on gender identity and sexual orientation.
  • Publicly call on all governments to respect and protect the rights, dignity, safety, and well-being of people of all sexual orientations and gender identities without discrimination.

Read the full series

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