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Amnesty International Report 2017/18

RIGHTS OF WOMEN AND GIRLS

Women and girls across the region continued to be subjected to a wide range of violations and 

abuses, including gender-based violence and discrimination and violations of sexual and 

reproductive rights.

VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND GIRLS

Violence against women and girls remained prevalent. Impunity for crimes such as rape, 

killings and threats was widespread and entrenched, often underpinned by weak political will, 

limited resources to investigate and bring perpetrators to justice, and an unchallenged 

patriarchal culture.

Ongoing gender-based violence in the Dominican Republic resulted in an increase in the 

number of killings of women and girls. Gender-based violence against women and girls was 

also a major concern in Mexico and worsened in Nicaragua.

In Jamaica, women’s movements and survivors of gender-based and sexual violence took to 

the streets to protest against impunity for such crimes.

There was an increase in the number of killings of women in leadership roles in Colombia, 

and no clear progress in ensuring access to justice for women survivors of sexual violence. 

However, women’s organizations ensured that the Peace Agreement established that people 

suspected of having committed crimes of sexual violence would be required to appear before 

transitional justice tribunals.

In Cuba, The Ladies in White – a group of female relatives of prisoners detained on politically 

motivated grounds – remained a key target of repression by the authorities.

Canada’s federal government released a strategy to combat gender-based violence, and 

committed to placing women’s rights, gender equality and sexual and reproductive rights at 

the core of its foreign policy. A law to combat violence against women entered into force in 

Paraguay in December, although it remained unclear how it would be funded.

SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS

THE USA’S “GLOBAL GAG RULE”

In January, two days after massive worldwide demonstrations for equality and against 

discrimination, US President Trump put at risk the lives and health of millions of women and 

girls around the world by reinstating the so-called “global gag rule”. This blocked US financial 

assistance to any hospitals or organizations that provide abortion information about, or access 

to, safe and legal abortion care, or that advocate the decriminalization of abortion or the 

expansion of abortion services.

In Latin America alone – where experts estimate that 760,000 women are treated annually 

from complications of unsafe abortion – President Trump’s stance put many more lives at risk.

CRIMINALIZATION OF ABORTION

A ruling by Chile’s Constitutional Tribunal to support the decriminalization of abortion in certain 

cases left just seven countries worldwide persisting with a total ban on abortion, even when the 

life or health of the woman or girl is at risk. Six of those countries were in the Americas region: 

the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua and Suriname.

In El Salvador, 19-year-old Evelyn Beatriz Hernández Cruz was jailed for 30 years on charges 

of aggravated homicide, after suffering obstetric complications resulting in a miscarriage. In 

December, a court confirmed the 30-year sentence of Teodora, a woman who suffered a 

stillbirth in 2007.

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The Dominican Republic’s Senate voted against a proposal that would have decriminalized 

abortion in certain circumstances. In Honduras, Congress also maintained the ban on abortion 

in all circumstances in the new Criminal Code.

In Argentina, women and girls faced obstacles in accessing legal abortion when the 

pregnancy posed a risk to their health or resulted from rape; full decriminalization of abortion 

was pending in Parliament. In Uruguay, sexual and reproductive health services were difficult 

to access in rural areas, and objectors to providing abortion continued to obstruct access to 

legal abortions.

In October, the Ministry of Education and Science of Paraguay issued a resolution banning 

the inclusion in educational materials of basic information about human rights, sexual and 

reproductive health education and diversity, among other subjects.

In Bolivia – where unsafe abortions were one of the main causes of maternal mortality – the 

Criminal Code was amended to significantly expand access to legal abortion.

RIGHTS OF LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, TRANSGENDER AND 

INTERSEX PEOPLE

LGBTI people faced persistent discrimination, harassment and violence in the region, 

including in Haiti, Honduras and Jamaica.

In Bolivia the Constitutional Court invalidated part of a law which granted civil marriage rights 

to transgender people who had changed their gender on their identity documents. The 

country’s Ombudsman proposed an amendment to the Criminal Code to make hate crimes 

against LGBTI people a criminal offence.

In the Dominican Republic the body of a transgender woman, Jessica Rubi Mori, was found 

dismembered in wasteland. By the end of the year, no one had been brought to justice for her 

killing.

In Uruguay there remained no comprehensive anti-discrimination policy protecting LGBTI 

people from violence in schools and public spaces, or ensuring their access to health services.

ARMED CONFLICT

Despite the opportunities presented by the Peace Agreement in Colombia, legislation remained 

unimplemented on most of its points, and there were serious concerns around impunity for 

crimes committed during the conflict.

Ongoing human rights violations and abuses also demonstrated that the internal conflict 

between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the security forces was far 

from over, and in some areas it appeared to intensify. Civilian populations continued to be the 

main victims of the conflict – especially Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant and peasant 

farmer communities, and human rights defenders.

A spike in the number of human rights activists killed at the beginning of the year highlighted 

the dangers faced by those exposing ongoing abuses in Colombia.

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