UNIFEM Safe Cities: Ending Violence Against Women in Latin America

This year, UNIFEM/USNC and its Chapters have selected UNIFEM’s Safe Cities Program: Violence Against Women and Public Polices in Latin America as the focus of all major fundraising efforts. This collaboration between UNIFEM/USNC Chapters and UNIFEM/USNC will enable us to have a national focus and the greatest impact to help UNIFEM end gender-based violence in Latin American cities.

Background

Due to the rapid growth of many cities in Latin America, social exclusion, inequality and violence against women have significantly increased:

• According to the Pan American Health Organization, 1 out of 3 women is abused in the course of her life.
• Among women ages 15-44, gender-based violence causes more deaths and injuries than cancer, malaria, traffic accidents and war.
• In Sao Paulo, Brazil, a woman is abused every 15 seconds.
• In Chile’s metropolitan region, 50.3% of women from the age of 15 to 49 have been subjected to violence by their partners.

The Safe Cities program will strengthen women’s citizenship rights in order to reduce public and private gender-based violence as well as increase women’s safety and security in Latin American cities.

Your Support will Help UNIFEM to:

• Disseminate knowledge and promote public debate on the subject of women’s safety in cities.
• Promote the incorporation of violence against women in social agendas and public policies.
• Start actions in Cochabamba, Bolivia; Lima, Peru; and Recife, Brazil.
• Implement participatory models for security intervention in Bogota, Colombia; Rosario, Argentina; and Santiago, Chile.

For more information, download the Project Fact Sheet below.