translated from Spanish: Brief reflection on sexual harassment and other violence against women

By Teresa Da Cunha Lopes
The relevance of respect for human rights since its international recognition in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, signed in 1948 by the United Nations, as a result of democratic progress, including Mexico, has helped to put it on the table of various legal assumptions where the protection of property protected by law, such as the dignity of people, is part of an essential framework of justice and defense of them much more integral and in line with new social realities.
Similarly, institutional progress in the interests of gender equity and equal opportunities in areas such as labour has made it possible to identify not only situations of social and economic injustice for the population of women, both globally and in the domestic territory, but also the possibility of designing mechanisms that ensure minimum balances, such as affirmative actions in international jurisprudence, public policies and budgeting aimed at programmes for the women’s social development, with a gender focus.
In this way, more and more specific circumstances have been discovered, such as gender-based violence in the private sphere, in the workplace, in academic spaces and in the public sphere. Among these recent clarifications of abuse of power and violation of women’s human rights is the phenomenon of sexual harassment, which has multiple and different dimensions, reported by different organizations and institutions and noted by various researches that have demonstrated the existence, extent and severity of sexual harassment in the workplace, in academic spaces, in government administrations, etc.
In Mexico, the figures for harassment or sexual harassment at work, at school, at various levels of public administration are minimal and partial because, in fact, both harassment and sexual harassment, marital assault are not clearly typified and, moreover, the authorities are not adequately qualified for the implementation of existing protocols, making it difficult for these crimes to be reported and quantified in all their raw reality.
Consideration of sexual harassment and sexual assault as forms of discrimination on the basis of sex and as a manifestation of gender-based violence, as opposed to the principle of equal treatment between men and women, makes the need to establish measures and strategies that will make effective equality of men and women at work, in school environments, in the family, in the public space, in order to eradicate behaviours contrary to the dignity of women.
Different studies and reports have shown that sexual harassment is not a pathological and easily recognizable behavior, nor a specific behavior that can be learned, evaluated and catalogued since it is inscribed in a relationship plot where there is an imbalance of power between subjects, unfavourable to women.
Sexual harassment is rooted in environments – work, academic, family, public – sexist,. It manifests itself in various ways: direct and indirect; of gravity and varying intensity; and can be presented in isolation or on going. These behaviors can range from requirements or propositions, jokes, jokes, display of posters or photographs with sexist content, to physical behaviors or unwanted frictionthatthat that can be an old age to those who suffer them, up to assault or sexual assault.
Another component to be taken into account is the lack of social sensitivity and sufficient preparation to perceive it, except in extreme manifestations, which results in excessive tolerance even exaltation, versus certain behaviors and superficiality with that, on certain occasions, their diagnosis and treatment are addressed. Therefore, this behavior must be visualized from two necessarily differentiated planes.
The first, through the conventional and constitutional legal framework, ( as well as from criminal legislation and, also labour) in force and whose maximum scope bets on the preventive stage through programmatic awareness. The other plane targets cases where sexual harassment has already been filed and its criminalization at the federal level needs to be reviewed in order to respond more effectively to the common problems that arise in the workplace , family, academic, public etc,, taking special care to consider the results that investigations into the crime yield to the sustenance of the psychological consequences that the conduct generates in the victims. That is, somatic diseases arising in a higher percentage in people who have been subjected to this psychic overload that disrupts their daily lives.
These conditions are characterized very frequently through varying degrees of depression in the victim, mood swings, sleep disturbances, aggressiveness, irritation, problems with concentration and memory disturbance and low self-esteem; in very serious cases there is suicide or the excessive exercise of violence in response to the pressure suffered, in addition to the corresponding distortions that this situation causes in the family, partner and friendship environment, as well as in the relationships between subordinates, teachers and students, etc.
With this background there is a perceived need to link the two stages (preventive and sanctioning) of sexual harassment, in the understanding of corresponding as a binomial expressed in a model of social treatment.
The relevance of the second stage lies in the establishment of a family-based work rehabilitation programme that, as a mandatory, contributes to assessing the degree of awareness of the harasser, with the impact that his behaviour has generated in the common area in damage to the victim of the crime.
Because the problem of gender-based violence and sexual harassment is important not only because of its magnitude, but because of its meaning in terms of constituting a violation of women’s rights, some definitions should be taken into account, which neither are always handled clearly. These are some of the operational definitions we propose in the context of gender mainstreaming and in order to establish a common language of concepts in this area, not just for legislative work and the production of regulations Mexico, but also as a guide for the drafting of internal protocols to organizations:
Affirmative actions. Temporary strategic acts that seek to implement policies to support women to address inequality, inequity and injustice in existing structures;
Women’s Human Rights. Those that any woman can access, so they are universal in nature. Women’s human rights are inalienable, imprescriptible and indivisible. The full participation of women in political, economic, social and cultural life, on an equal footing, at the regional, national and international levels and the eradication of all forms of gender-based discrimination, are their objectives priority priorities;
Equity. Principle of action aimed at achieving just conditions in access and control of cultural and material goods for both women and men. As a term linked to justice, it obliges to set the objectives that must be achieved in order to move towards a more just society;
Gender Equity. Principle that, aware of the inequality between women and men, allows access with fairness and a level playing field to the use, control, use and benefit of the goods, services, opportunities and rewards of society; this in order to engage women in decision-making in all areas of social, economic, political, cultural and family life; Gender. A set of social, cultural, political, psychological, legal and economic characteristics, assigned according to the historical moment, to people in a different way according to sex.
Gender is constructed from the anatomical difference of sexual order, it is not synonymous with women; refers to the socially constructed. It refers to differences and inequalities between women and men, for social and cultural reasons manifested by social (reproductive, productive and community management) roles, as well as responsibilities, knowledge or priority in use, control, use and benefit of resources; Equality.
It implies that all people, without exception, are equal before the law and before the State, so they must have the same opportunities to meet their needs and exercise rights; Gender Perspective. Analysis tool that allows us to identify the differences between men and women to establish actions aimed at promoting situations of equity. The use of the gender perspective makes it possible to understand that there is an asymmetry that is concrete in the use and use of power. It also serves to define how this difference takes on the dimension of inequality and helps to understand that this situation is a cultural fact that can and must be changed; Transversality of the gender perspective. Integration of the gender perspective in the design and implementation of policies, programs, administrative, economic and institutional activities, to contribute to a change in the situation of generic inequality.
FinalmeIt should be emphasized that violence against women in any of its forms cannot be recognized only in different fields as a serious social and health problem. This multiple and complex phenomenon is not only a public health problem, a breakdown of the social fabric but one of the most serious public safety challenges. At present the hate speech, the misogyny, the gender-based violence, the wave of rapes and femicides have reached unbearable figures.
Whether this escalation of violence relates to living conditions and power relations within the home, in the work, academic and social environment, we cannot overlap the ideological and cultural component that promotes and/or at least « normalizes » a acceptance of the unacceptable.
I do not deny that Mexico has heeded the call of international instruments by designing mainly public policies and laws to prevent and eradicate gender-based violence, to criminalize harassment, hate crime and femicide, today we see that there is general impunity, a shortfall in access to justice and enormous institutional cruelty in the care of victims. . In sum, existing actions and protocols are insufficient as the phenomenon of violence still affects a significant number of Mexican women.
Indeed, in a first generation of surveys, local or regional in nature, they showed that the scale of the problem was very significant, estimating prevalences ranging from 15% to 60%, depending on the type of design of the study and the region where it was Made. Dependent variables have been the types of intimate violence (physical, sexual, psychological and economic) of couplein in the last year, as well as total violence (which groups them all). The findings also show that violence is negatively associated with the women’s freedom index, and with the insecurity rate resulting from the absence of the state in some regions. The problem is complex, multiple variables, but the timing is pressing. It is time to take concrete action, it is the time of zero tolerance, the time to end complicit silences and to demand protection actions, It is urgent to eradicate impunity. Needless to say: enough is enough.
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Original source in Spanish