The EUROsociAL+ gender area is holding the 1st consolidation meeting of the AIAMP's Specialised Gender Network to strengthen coordination among Iberoamerican Public Prosecutor's Offices in matters relating to the investigation, protection and criminal prosecution of gender violence and feminicide.
The EUROsociAL+ gender area, in collaboration with UN Women, is holding the first meeting of REG, the network specialising in Gender, which belongs to the Ibero-American Association of Public Prosecutors (AIAMP) and is open to all the Association’s 22 countries. This event responds to commitments made at the 2018 AIAMP General Assembly to set up the Gender Group (GEG) consisting of 13 AIAMP countries, as a permanent network encompassing the 22 member countries belonging to AIAMP. The main objective of the REG is to strengthen the capacities of AIAMP members’ Public Prosecutor’s Offices to improve gender equality and equity, as well as the investigation, protection and criminal prosecution of cases related to gender violence and violence against women and feminicide.
Coordinated by the Guatemalan Public Prosecutor’s Office, representatives from public ministries, public and special prosecutors from 17 countries attended the event in Antigua, from 20 to 24 May 2019: Representatives attended from Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Paraguay, Panama, Peru and Uruguay. The objectives of the meeting were to consolidate the Network and its role within the AIAMP, to enhance protocols and to establish coordinated actions to ensure that the public prosecutors’ offices in Latin America have tools that strengthen gender-based investigation and prosecution.
The first milestone was the approval and signature of a five year strategic plan for 2019-2023, drafted with support from EUROsociAL+ for GEG-AIAMP member countries, which has now become a document that strengthens all the prosecutors’ offices in Latin America. With the aim of establishing a course of action to strengthen criminal investigation and prosecution on gender issues in the countries that make up the AIAMP, the REG agreed to present the Plan at the General Assembly of the AIAMP at the end of 2019. This presentation will make it possible to fulfil the urgent commitment to prioritising the preparation and execution of a criminal prosecution policy in the area of gender violence/crime in the institutional agendas of the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
Work undertaken with experts from EUROsociAL+ and UN Women, Edith López and Françoise Roth, allowed proposals to be prepared for improvements to the Latin American Protocol for investigating gender-related violent deaths of women (Femicide) and to analyse the Regional Protocol for Research with a Gender Perspective into crimes against women committed in the public and private spheres. This second protocol entails updating the regional protocol, approved with support from EUROsociAL2 by AIAMP in 2013, in order to include violence in the public sphere and the private sphere, respecting the CEDAW and Belém do Par conventions.
Thanks to the exchange of experiences, Edith López also presented two Good Practice reports, “Criminal Investigation and Prosecution with a Gender Focus”, and “Laws, Public Policies and Judicial Resolutions with a Gender Focus”, both documents were prepared using consultative methodologies with the member countries belonging to the REG – AIAMP. The gender area also invited the CEVI expert for Guatemala, Dr Hilda Morales, to present the new “Femicide Model Law” to the delegations, this was drafted by the OAS and UN Women.
Among the main results of the meeting, Marie Dominique de Suremain, Coordinator of the EUROsociAL+ Gender Area, and Mar Merita Blat, Senior Technician with the same area, pointed out that: “The REG has been reaffirmed and strengthened, overcoming obstacles and acquiring shared region commitments while clarifying its objectives”. It has also “identified the need to create and maintain partnerships between the public and special prosecutor’s offices and cooperation agencies and connections with other international strategies and human rights bodies”.
The next meeting will be coordinated by the Argentine Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office, while ensuring the transfer of capacities acquired by the Guatemalan Public Prosecutor’s Office.
For more information, documents and minutes are available from the AIAMP Gender Network: http://www.aiamp.info/index.php/redes-permanentes-aiamp/red-de-violencia-de-genero
Add link to video made by the Guatemalan Public Prosecutor’s Office: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buUOePDi4CU
News on the AIAMP: http://www.aiamp.info/index.php/noticias-del-sitio/celebracion-del-iii-taller-de-la-red-especializada-en-temas-de-genero
