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Women practicing their right to protest

Article 7,20

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A survey of women human rights defenders (WHRDs) conducted as part of APC's Connect Your Rights! campaign revealed some interesting practices and perceptions in terms of their use of information and communications technologies in their work. Daysi Flores, a GenderIT.org contributor, analyses the preliminary results of the survey, in light of the realities of Latin America.
"The Internet has become a vital communications medium which individuals can use to exercise their right to freedom of expression, (...) as guaranteed under articles 19 of both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights." (Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, 2011)
Women human rights defenders (WHRDs) use all of the means within their reach to help ensure that their efforts - generally carried out in negative and sometimes precarious conditions - have the greatest impact possible. In the search to amplify their messages, their voices and their struggles, they have explored every potential strategy. And this is especially true if their advocacy revolves around women's rights specifically. The use of the internet and other digital media in the struggle for human rights has become increasingly common. However, as is true wherever WHRDs act, although these tools offer opportunities, they also entail risks and threats.

In recognition of this fact, the Connect Your Rights! campaign, an initiative of the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), conducted a survey in a number of different regions to learn more about the experiences and opinions of WHRDs in relation to online security, as well as assessing their level of awareness and interest in further training. This GenderIT.org article offers comments on some of the preliminary results of the survey, based on analysis from the perspective of the realities faced by WHRDs in Latin America.

The survey was conducted in both English and Spanish, and significant differences were observed between the two languages in the preliminary findings, reflecting differences between English-speaking and Spanish-speaking WHRDs in certain aspects of online security-related incidents. For example, Spanish-speaking respondents reported suffering less harassment than their English-speaking counterparts. Given these results, we need to ask ourselves: Are WHRDs in Latin America more security-conscious in their use of online tools? Or could this be a bias associated with access or some other aspect we may be overlooking?

The number of internet users in Latin America, as seen in Table 1, represents 10.1% of worldwide users (while the region accounts for 9% of the global population). As the statistics demonstrate, the proportion of the region's inhabitants with access to the internet is higher than the world average. At first glance, these figures suggest that since the Latin American region enjoys higher rates of access, WHRDs here have adopted ICTs to a greater extent than their counterparts in other regions, and therefore have a greater awareness of the dangers and threats they pose - which could logically lead to greater use of tools to ensure their online security. However, there are a number of important factors that need to be taken into account before jumping to this conclusion:

1. Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is not a homogeneous region. In the subregion of Mesoamerica (Mexico and Central America), for example, there are wide disparities not only between countries, but within countries as well. As can be seen in Table 2, although countries like Costa Rica and Mexico enjoy higher than average internet access rates, the other countries far fall below the world average. This generally means that women's human rights organisations and defenders have to contract specialised services which, although not specifically designed for them, nevertheless tend to provide higher levels of online security. At the same time, though, they lead to greater inequality in access to services, due to the considerable resources that need to be invested in them.

2. Privatisation and oligopolistic ownership of internet services lend themselves to mechanisms of control. Across the LAC countries, internet service providers are limited to a handful of private companies, which also account for the vast majority of service provision in the region as a whole. This makes it easy to establish mechanisms to control the information that enters and leaves accounts through their servers, as well as to restrict and/or cut off service in certain "conflict zones" or "hot spots" and keep a record of all activity. This in turn means that there are indirect controls on WHRDs, so direct attacks may be less likely.

3. Levels of insecurity. For WHRDs who live in areas marked by a severe breakdown of the social fabric, it is difficult to ascertain whether attacks are due to their human rights activity or whether they are simply cases of common crime. Many WHRDs can only access the internet from their mobile phones, which are highly prone to theft, or at their offices. These could also be targeted for breaking, entering and robbery either due to their work or for petty theft. The WHRDs themselves do not have access to reliable investigative procedures to determine the actual motive. Further, since the state security forces focus on control mechanisms rather than on security mechanisms, even when these incidents are reported (to policing agencies for common crimes, not specialised agencies), there is generally little to no action taken.
Threats and their agents
Taking these three factors into account, we will take a closer look at the survey results, focusing on three particular areas:

a) Threats and their agents
b) Responses and protective measures
c) Training: Assessment and needs

The main online threat reported by WHRDs is harassment. This intimidation could be strictly related to their gender, a matter of discrimination due to the fact that they are engaged in non-traditional tasks and behaviours, such as the use of technology, or perhaps just the simple fact that they are women. This finding also demonstrates the vulnerable conditions in which WHRDs carry out their work in general.

As mentioned above, according to the survey findings, English-speaking women reported more incidents of online harassment than their Spanish-speaking counterparts. At the same, the latter were found to have higher levels of online security training. We could deduce from this that they are therefore in a better position than WHRDs in other regions to prevent attacks. This leads to the question: Is there a correlation between these two factors? Are Spanish-speaking WHRDs more aware, better trained and more proactive than English speakers when it comes to defending and protecting themselves online, and thus less prone to suffer from online harassment? If this is the case, would this be a result of higher levels of training on online security? Or is it due to the long tradition of the adoption and strategic use of ICTs among numerous women's rights organisations in the region (despite the significant gender-based digital divide observed in Latin America in general)?

And there are other lines of questioning we could follow to further explore this issue. Could the "naturalisation" of violence that permeates Latin American societies be considered a factor when assessing the degree to which Spanish-speaking WHRDs report online harassment and threats in general? Although the survey revealed lower levels of training on online security among English-speaking women, could they be equipped with other tools provided by their socio-cultural context which allows them to more precisely identify harassment in general terms, and therefore recognise it when it extends to the online world? Taking this further, is it perhaps possible that the difference does not lie in the actual occurrence of harassment, but rather in different levels of socio-cultural capacities for recognising harassment both online and off? These reflections could contribute significantly to gaining deeper insight into the practices of WHRDs in different regions and understanding how to prevent online threats more effectively.
Responses and protective measures
In the meantime, between 20% and 25% of survey respondents reported that they had faced incidents of having their email accounts and websites hacked, while only 10% to 15% had experienced the seizure of their computers or other equipment.

But who are the agents of these threats? In the Mesoamerican region, there has been significant regression with regard to freedom of expression and the control of online activity with the justification of the so-called "war on drugs" or the "fight against organised crime", depending on the country in question. It is therefore surprising to find that, according to the preliminary survey results, it seems unlikely that the online threats facing WHRDs result from overt measures adopted by states. They are more likely to be carried out by private groups or individuals. However, it is quite possible that states use and/or sponsor these groups or individuals to practice covert repression. In numerous countries of the region, telecommunications company owners occupy government positions that result in a fine line between the government and the private sector. At the same time, individuals are used by the police to silence voices of protest and impose social control.

The preliminary survey data reveal that WHRDs - in keeping with the role they play in their societies - do not remain silent when they are targeted. One of the most common measures in response to threats reported by the women surveyed was to organise campaigns around them. This finding may be because the survey was primarily conducted among WHRDs who use technology and communications as a key tool in their work.

WHRDs are as likely to deal with problems or threats themselves as to seek external help. However, this external help never involves the police. On the contrary, they express a complete lack of trust in police forces, which means they neither report threats to the police nor expect them to respond effectively. In Latin America, this lack of trust is rooted in a broader regional context of a history of dictatorships and repression. Moreover, not only do police and judicial authorities in the region lack the necessary tools to respond to the threats reported: on many occasions, police agencies themselves are involved in the attacks. This of course does not absolve state agencies from their responsibility for protecting WHRDs and responding to the threats they face, which remains a pending issue in the region.

One would logically expect that, the more that incidents are reported, the greater the likelihood of adopting measures in response. Paradoxically, however, English-speaking WHRDs are more likely to ignore the problem (nearly a third), while their Spanish-speaking counterparts seem to take threats more seriously. Could this difference be due to the fact that the incidents reported by Spanish-speaking WHRDs are viewed as being more serious? Or is that English-speaking WHRDs work in safer settings, allowing them to feel more secure despite the threats?
Training: Assessment and needs
Another interesting finding is that WHRDs rarely respond to online security threats by moving to a new server or medium. On the contrary, one in five said that they would report the problem to the site owner. This leads us to wonder whether this trust in operators reflects a lack of information on the functioning of these sites.

When it comes to protective measures, more than half of the organisations interviewed have an online security policy. Around 90% of WHRDs have anti-virus software and more than half use a secure browser add-on. Interestingly, secure file deletion is used by more than half of Spanish speakers but less than half of English speakers. It is troubling to note that aside from these practices, less than a quarter of the WHRDs interviewed use any other security measures, and less than half were concerned about legal issues, despite the growing criminalisation of the use and promotion of these tools in some countries of the region.

One of the most interesting findings of the survey was that, regardless of their level of access to the internet, all of the WHRDs interviewed said they needed more information and training on online security. The current insufficiency of education on these issues is clearly reflected in these comments by Hedme Sierra, a women's rights defender in Honduras: "I studied computer engineering, and they never taught me how these sites and systems really work, much less tell me that there are other ways of protecting yourself or other types of software that are non-proprietary; these are things I've learned through activism."

The training available is rarely consistent, and follow-up is often lacking for various reasons. While it is not unusual that WHRDs expressed the need for more online security training, it is curious that the specific needs stated did not correspond to what they identified as the most common threat they face (harassment) but rather to one of the most common fears online, shared by more than 70% of respondents: the fear of private information being shared without their knowledge or consent. As a result, the majority of WHRDs said they needed training in secure social networking, protecting their online identity, and privacy and security in online campaigning.
The edition is a part of APC's Connect your rights: Internet rights are human rights campaign financed by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) Image published with permission of JASS Mesoamérica
The expressed need for safer social networking demonstrates that these tools are widely used by WHRDs, and that the training offered by organisations like APC makes the use of these networks more secure by teaching women more about how to use them and how to protect themselves while doing so. However, it would be interesting to see if more training could lead WHRDs to begin exploring more secure, non-proprietary sites such as EcoBook and other media that are not market-driven, thus contributing to a more coherent and egalitarian revolution.

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Women human rights defenders and digital security: Reflections with a Latin American accent

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A survey of women human rights defenders (WHRDs) conducted as part of APC's Connect Your Rights! campaign revealed some interesting practices and perceptions in terms of their use of information and communications technologies in their work. Daysi Flores, a GenderIT.org contributor, analyses the preliminary results of the survey, in light of the realities of Latin America.

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Many rights were abused in Colombia. 6.9 million people were forced to move out which is violating the right to have a place to live.

Article 25

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Right to your own religion

Article 18, Article 1

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American University's Center for Latin American and Latino Studies (CLALS) and The Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) invite you to a discussion featuring:

Robert Albro
Research Associate Professor, CLALS

Evan Berry
Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religion, American University

Guillermo Kerber
Program Executive on Care for Creation and Climate Justice, World Council of Churches

Moderated by
Geoff Thale, Program Director, WOLA

Thursday, January 21, 2016
10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.

WOLA
1666 Connecticut Ave NW, Suite 400
Washington, DC 20009

For more information, please contact Jacquelyn Dolezal at [email protected] .

To RSVP, please click here.

Light refreshments will be served.

This event will be livestreamed and available at www.wola.org.

Environmental issues-immediate issues such as land use, mining, and access to water, and long term issues such as climate change-have been major sources of conflict in Latin America in recent years. What role has religion played in these conflicts? Have religious beliefs inspired or supported environmental efforts? Have church institutions played mobilizing or mediating roles? What can we expect in the future about the role of religion as environmental conflicts continue to play out in the region?

American University's Center for Latin American and Latino Studies (CLALS) has just completed a two-year project on the role of religious ideas and religious actors in shaping public debates about environmental issues and climate change throughout Latin America. Join us for a presentation that looks at the project's findings and examines key cases which offer a perspective on the ways in which religion is currently impacting multilateral climate policy.

These include how religious leaders and grassroots movements have integrated environmental issues into the faith-based call for justice and human rights; the role of transnational religious advocacy networks in international climate change negotiations, including the UN's Framework Convention on Climate Change; and indigenous cosmologies in Bolivia and their impact on Bolivia's approach to the international politics of climate change.
Robert Albro is a Research Associate Professor at American University's Center for Latin American and Latino Studies, who has written extensively about natural resource conflicts in Bolivia.

Evan Berry is an Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religion at American University and Co-Director of the Ethics, Peace, and Global Affairs master's program, who has written on the religious underpinnings of environmental movements.

Guillermo Kerber is a Program Executive on Care for Creation and Climate Justice for the World Council of Churches, based in Geneva, Switzerland. He also serves as WCC's Program Coordinator for Eco-Justice and Diakonia. Dr. Kerber is a leading authority on the role of the transnational church in addressing climate change and other environmental justice issues, and has worked extensively on understanding how climate change impacts rural development, youth, and indigenous peoples, particularly in Latin America. He is co-founder of the Geneva Interfaith Forum on Climate Change, Environment, and Human Rights.

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Religion, Environment and Social Conflict in Latin America - WOLA

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American University's Center for Latin American and Latino Studies (CLALS) and The Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) invite you to a discussion featuring: Robert Albro Research Associate Professor, CLALS Evan Berry Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religion, American University Guillermo Kerber Program Executive on Care for Creation and Climate Justice, World Council of Churches Moderated by Geoff Thale, Program Director, WOLA Thursday, January 21, 2016 10:00 a.m.

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Educational rights

Article 26

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Active Citizens, Civil Society, Conferences, Development & Aid, Gender, Gender Violence, Headlines, Human Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean, Population, Poverty & SDGs, Regional Categories, TerraViva Europe, TerraViva United Nations, Women's Health

- Latin American states are still failing to provide guarantees for women's educational, sexual and reproductive rights, according to activists from different regions of the world meeting in the Mexican capital.

"Pending issues include economics, education, violence and sexual and reproductive health," María Oviedo, the Argentine training manager for the Latin American and Caribbean Committee for the Defence of Women's Rights (CLADEM), told IPS. "Enforcement of the laws is the weakest link. Governments lack a comprehensive policy to address these issues."

Oviedo, together with dozens of women's rights defenders from Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa, attended the May 7-10 seminar "Incidencia en red: el desafío que los estados cumplan con los derechos humanos de las mujeres" (Networking: Challenging States to Respect Women's Human Rights).

CLADEM, founded in 1987, launched a campaign in 2011 with the slogan "For a state that fulfils its duties towards women's human rights. The time has arrived!" Financed by the European Union and the Dutch organisation Oxfam Novib, the campaign will conclude in 2015.

In Latin America, indicators on primary school education, employment and incomes have improved over the past decade, but there are still significant gaps between the status of women and men in this region with a highly patriarchal culture.

There are some 163 million economically active men and 113 million women in the region. By 2020 these figures are forecast to rise to 188 million and 141 million respectively, according to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

There is an upward trend for women's employment, and ECLAC estimates that by 2020, 56 percent of women will be working outside the home, compared to 52 percent in 2010.

"Inequality and injustice underlie day-to-day violence," Gabriela Delgado, of the human rights programme at the state National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), told IPS. "The bottleneck for women's struggles is the justice system. This means that structural changes are needed."

Among the states' pending debts in this area are legislative reforms to establish formal equality under the law, and the enforcement of policies to achieve the goals of access to economic resources, violence-free lives, sexual and reproductive rights and non-sexist education to combat discrimination.

Activists have identified laws that tolerate marital rape and other kinds of rape, endorse different minimum ages at which men and women can marry, or grant greater rights to men on marriage, in countries like Argentina, Bolivia, Guatemala, Haiti, Nicaragua and Panama.

Between 17 and 53 percent of women in the region are victims of violence, and this scenario is exacerbated because 92 percent of reported crimes go unpunished.

And abortion largely remains illegal in Latin America.

In the view of Rosa Cobo, an academic at Spain's public University of A Coruña, a mixture of age-old forms of violence are reemerging, together with new phenomena linked to the illegal economy and organised crime.

"We are living in a world characterised by geopolitical, economic, political and patriarchal disorder, which produces excessive violence that always affects the most disadvantaged and the weakest sectors," Cobo told IPS.

She cited as examples the femicides (gender-based murders of women) in Guatemala and Ciudad Juárez, on the border between Mexico and the United States; gender violence in armed conflicts; the trafficking of women for sexual exploitation; and the sale of women into marriage in Asia.

The activists called for guarantees from states for equality between men and women and girls and boys, through the elimination of discriminatory rules and practices, and the promotion of equality and shared responsibilities for domestic chores, in order to eradicate poverty and usher in a life free from violence for women and girls.

They also called for sexual and reproductive autonomy for women, access to reproductive health resources and services, and secular, intercultural, non-sexist and anti-discriminatory education.

"There is a worrying debt to women that is going to take years to overcome," Oviedo said.

CLADEM, which is based in Lima, launched a campaign in 2009 for non-sexist and anti-discriminatory education to promote education based on respect, equality and cooperation between the sexes.

"Isn't it likely that there is a relationship between this extreme violence against women and the progress made in winning women's rights in recent years?" Cobo asked.

This kind of violence "shows a compulsion to control, in response to the social reality that criticises the status of women. Violence has been displaced from known spaces to the unknown, so that men are now killing women whom they do not know," she said.

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Women's Rights Still Denied in Latin America

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Latin American states are still failing to provide guarantees for women's educational, sexual and reproductive rights, according to activists from different regions of the world meeting in the Mexican capital. "Pending issues include economics, education, violence and sexual and reproductive health," María Oviedo, the Argentine training manager for the Latin American and Caribbean Committee for the Defence of Women's Rights (CLADEM), told IPS.

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DDa. Cultural
B.yes. I think this is because of some rights are more important than others that people don't recognize some of them
C. Denied was the easiest because it's easier to find what's wrong with someone then what is good. I'd say the hardest was conflict.
D. Only a few. Maybe because people don't want to be straightforward with what's wrong with where they live.
E. I don't think the state of human rights isn't very healthy. There is a lot of negative actions that are taking place, so I don't think it's safe. I definitely think that they should be worried. These people aren't able to take control of their rights.

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Marriage rights being practiced in Latin America. Same-sex marriage is allowed in most countries in Latin America.

Article 16

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While laws allowing same-sex marriage have become more common in European countries and in U.S. states, gay marriage advocates also have gained ground in some parts of Latin America. Most recently, the Mexican Supreme Court issued a ruling making it much easier for gay and lesbian couples to wed.

The Mexican high court decision gave same-sex couples the right to seek a court injunction against state laws banning gay marriage, but it did not technically legalize same-sex unions nationwide. (Gay marriage is currently legal in just a few Mexican states and jurisdictions.)

Still, the ruling is a major step toward full legalization, which would mean same-sex marriage would be legal in three of Latin America's four most populous countries - Brazil, Mexico and Argentina - in addition to tiny Uruguay. Among the world's major regions, only Europe has more countries permitting legal gay marriages.

At the same time, strong conservative social views in many Latin American countries mean that this legal trend may not be primed to spread through the region in the near future.

Among countries where gay marriage is legal, Uruguay is the only place where a majority of the public (62%) supports allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry legally. About half of Argentinians and Mexicans favor gay marriage, while support for allowing same-sex couples to legally wed stands at 45% in Brazil, according to a Pew Research Center survey of Latin America conducted in 2013 and 2014.

In a majority of countries across the region, one-third of adults or fewer favor legal gay marriage, while more than 60% oppose it. For example, 80% of Paraguayans, 74% of Ecuadorians and 64% of Colombians say they oppose same-sex marriage. In much of Central America, opposition also is particularly strong: Roughly three-quarters or more of Hondurans, Guatemalans, Salvadorans and Nicaraguans are against gay marriage.

Aside from those nations that already have legalized gay marriage, Chile is the country most supportive of the idea, yet public opinion on the issue remains divided there. Fully 46% of Chileans favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to wed, compared with 42% opposed. Earlier this year, Chile enacted a law recognizing civil unions (although not full marriage rights) for same-sex couples; Colombia and Ecuador also recognize some form of legal partnerships for gay and lesbian couples.

Across Latin America, the growing Protestant population is more opposed to same-sex marriage than are Catholics or people who say they are unaffiliated with any religion (religious "nones"). While the vast majority of Mexicans are Catholic (81%), the religious divide on the issue is apparent - 50% of Mexican Catholics favor legal gay marriage, compared with 35% of Protestants and 65% of the religiously unaffiliated. Roughly one-in-ten or fewer Mexicans are Protestant (9%) or unaffiliated (7%).

As is the case in many countries, younger Mexicans are far more likely to favor same-sex marriage than older age groups; 63% of Mexicans ages 18 to 34 voice support for gay marriage, compared with 40% of those 35 and older.

Topics: Gay Marriage and Homosexuality, Mexico, Religious Beliefs and Practices, Latin America, Marriage and Divorce

Michael Lipka is a senior editor focusing on religion at Pew Research Center.

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Same-sex marriage makes some legal gains in Latin America

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While laws allowing same-sex marriage have become more common in European countries and in U.S. states, gay marriage advocates also have gained ground in some parts of Latin America. Most recently, the Mexican Supreme Court issued a ruling making it much easier for gay and lesbian couples to wed.

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Women's sexuality being denied in prison

The right to your own sexuality was denied

article 19

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Imprisoned women's rights to sexuality and maternity are unduly restricted in many Latin American countries-though courts are starting to change that.

In most Latin American countries the female penitentiary population represents less than 10% of the inmates. Most of them have been convicted for non-violent crime like drug trafficking, more than half are between 20 and 35 years old and almost all of them have children (some of them living with their mothers behind bars).

A key problem these women face is the enjoyment of their rights to sexuality and to motherhood. This issue is rarely discussed, however, because society, politicians and the media assume that this part of the population has no fundamental rights at all. While some restrictions certainly must accompany prison life, any enforced limitations should be reasonable and justified. Under these criteria, it is not apparent why rights to sexuality and maternity should be denied.

However, there are many "requirements" imposed by prison authorities for female inmates to be able to exert their sexuality in conjugal visits. For instance, they are required to have a stable relationship, which must be ascertained through a marriage certificate or the birth certificate of a common child. They are also required to have uninterrupted "excellent behavior" for a period of no less than six months. Such requirements are common in many Latin American countries.

Clearly, most inmates wish to maintain familiar and spousal/partner ties while in prison, and these ties are recognized as important for the inmate's emotional health. The requirement of a stable romantic relationship (spouse or partner) may therefore be seen as supporting the maintenance of familiar and partner/spousal ties. However, in prison there are also single and divorced women who do not have a stable partner and who may have-exactly as the inmates in a stable relationship-the desire to exercise their sexuality. If we understand this right as the freedom to autonomously choose who one desires to have sexual relations with, clearly only applying it to married women (or those in a stable relationship), restricts and violates sexual liberty.

Why shouldn't it apply to all detained women? In Spain, for example, legislation provides that prisoners are the ones who choose the person with whom they want to have conjugal visits, whether their spouse or another person. This wide criterion has allowed homosexual inmates to have conjugal visits as well.

Demanding "excellent behavior" in order to have sex in prison reveals the use of conjugal visits as an instrument to keep female inmates in line. Demanding "excellent behavior" in order to have sex in prison-besides discriminating against inmates that have "bad" or even "regular" behavior-reveals the use of conjugal visits as an instrument to keep female inmates in line. It also exposes a contradiction, for if the purpose of this kind of visit is to preserve family bonds, then the conduct of the inmate should not be relevant.

Conjugal visits thus regulated do not amount to a right, but merely a privilege or a reward for good behavior. Those not complying with behavior regulations established by the prison authority, besides being exposed to arbitrary sanctions, have no chance at all to exert their sexuality, even if they have a stable relationship.

In some cases, the nature of the crime committed influences decisions to allow conjugal visits. This happened to Elizabeth Venturo Ríos at the Chorrillos Prison in Lima, Peru, who was condemned to a lengthy sentence for terrorist acts perpetrated within the terrorist movement Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path). In 2006 the penitentiary office told her she was forbidden to receive conjugal visits because she was convicted on terrorism charges, even though she was in a stable relationship and had excellent behavior.

Elizabeth Venturo and her fellow inmates went to court to challenge the decision, and the Constitutional Court of Peru ruled that, "conjugal visits are not restricted, limited or prohibited in a general or precise manner to inmates convicted for terrorist crimes; on the contrary, the restriction can be said to be the result of an arbitrary interpretation of regulations by the penitentiary authorities". Elsewhere in the same judgment, the Court held that: "the authorities' argument that the restriction is based on the fear that inmates may become pregnant does not justify an absolute restriction".

Demotix/Giuseppe Bizzarri(All rights reserved)

An incarcerated woman and her child in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Indeed, one of the reasons for restricting the conjugal visits of the inmates is the fear they will become pregnant. For example, in a 2005 working paper entitled Mujeres y Sistema Penitenciario, a penitentiary employee at a women's prison stated that, "The negation of conjugal visits for inmates comes from a simple fact: pregnancy. Given that men cannot become impregnated and women can, the possibility of pregnancy must be prevented by the authority".

While providing birth control may seem to be an obvious solution, nothing in this issue is that simple. Fear of pregnancy is a convenient excuse, but the main reason to withhold conjugal visits is to ensure order and discipline within the precinct. Only certain inmates have access to birth control, and even then, whether or not a woman chooses to use the birth control methods provided is something that authorities cannot control. Therefore it's simpler and more effective, from the authorities' point of view, to simply restrict sexual relations altogether.

Rather than focusing on maternity or sexual rights, the authorities seem to focus on logistical problems-pointing to the lack of special environments within the prison where children can live with their mothers. While this is certainly a very real issue, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has ruled that states must assume particular responsibilities and take diverse special initiatives to guarantee inmates the necessary conditions to develop a life of dignity and contribute to the enjoyment of those rights.

There are many ways to guarantee maternity and sexual rights to women in prisons. Special environments within the prison could be built for women and their children. In Argentina, house arrest is an option for women that have newborns in prison. Yet other countries on the continent, such as Peru, still have not discussed any such alternatives. But as long as changes are not implemented, female inmates will continue to find themselves deprived of many of their fundamental rights.

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Imprisoned women's right to sexuality in Latin America

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Imprisoned women's rights to sexuality and maternity are unduly restricted in many Latin American countries-though courts are starting to change that. In most Latin American countries the female penitentiary population represents less than 10% of the inmates.