14 Spanish speaking countries have crossed the language divide to offer their solidarity and advocate for the protection of girls against child marriage in Trinidad and Tobago at the XIII Regional Conference on Women. Latin America and Caribbean civil society organizations recently gathered at the Feminist Organizations Forum in Montevideo, Uruguay, with 37 women's right groups answering the call to action and signing onto The Coalition to End Child Marriage in T&T's CIVIL SOCIETY STATEMENT ON RATIONALIZING THE AGE OF CONSENT: Four Specific Criteria for Corrective Legislation.
Foro de Organizaciones Feministas, Magaly Pineda
WOMANTRA Founder/Co Director and newly minted civil society advisor to UN Women (LAC Region) Stephanie Leitch, seized the opportunity to speak to a largely Central and South American audience about the work of the Coalition to End Child Marriage in T&T at the Feminist Organizations Forum (FOF), based on the theme Feminist Challenges. The panel treated with different perspectives, constraints and opportunities faced in developing the capacity and impact of women's decisions on their autonomy. In keeping with this, Leitch spoke to the legislative and advocacy campaign led by various organizations of the Coalition over the past six months, in an attempt to pressure the government to #AmendTheMarriageLaws before year's end. The FOF named after Magaly Pineda, is coordinated by civil society to coincide with the Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean. This meeting happens once every three years and was convened for the first time in Montevideo, Uruguay from 25 - 28th October, 2016 by the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).
The Regional Conference on Women has been the main forum for the negotiation of an ambitious, broad and comprehensive regional gender agenda. This agenda comprises the commitments made by Latin American and Caribbean governments on women’s rights and autonomy and gender equality that were adopted at sessions of the Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean. These commitments are reflected in the Regional Plan of Action for the Integration of Women into Latin American Economic and Social Development (1977), the Regional Programme of Action for the Women of Latin America and the Caribbean, 1995-2001 (1994), the Santiago Consensus (1997), the Lima Consensus (2000), the Mexico City Consensus (2004), the Quito Consensus (2007), the Brasilia Consensus (2010) and the Santo Domingo Consensus (2013).
The newest of these, the Montevideo Strategy (2016) comes out of the negotiations at the XIII Conference on Women; a regional agreement that recognizes the political and programmatic value of preceding agreements and complements them, taking into account new socioeconomic and political situations at the regional and global levels over the past 40 years. Notably, the Trinidad and Tobago government was absent from these proceedings and by virtue of this opted out of contributing to the document, but remain bound to its contents as a member state.
To this end, the regional gender agenda makes specific reference to child marriage in Section (b) (i) on the critical dimensions for gender equality and women’s autonomy, recognized as rights;
"Right to a life free of all forms of violence and discrimination: violence against women in its various manifestations (private, public, symbolic, institutional, cyber, economic, obstetric, political, in armed conflicts, in natural disasters, deprivation of liberty, harassment in the workplace, sexual harassment, sexual abuse and exploitation, migrant smuggling, trafficking in women, forced prostitution, rape, femicide); forced marriage and cohabitation imposed on girls and adolescents; public safety and cities; legislation and access to justice; educational content and the media; stereotypes, sexism, racism, ethnocentrism, homophobia, lesbophobia, transphobia and discrimination."
The strategy comprises agreements on gender equality and women’s autonomy that address multiple issues that can be grouped together under certain critical dimensions that are integral to human rights, thereby recognizing women and girls as rights-holders and States as the guarantors of those rights, while reaffirming that those rights are universal, indivisible, inalienable and interdependent.
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We thank all of the organizations from across the LAC region for adding their strength to the Coalition to End Child Marriage and we urge the government to uphold its commitment to protect our nation's most vulnerable and end all forms of discrimination and violence against women and girls.
Signatories:
Organizations
Argentina
Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir
Frente de Mujeres Evita Argentina
La Red por los Derechos de las Personas con Discapacidad (REDI) La Fundación para Estudio e Investigación de la Mujer (FEIM)
Asociación Civil Accion Reflexión Lésbica Feminista - Las Safina
Articulación Feminista Mercosur- CISCA
Asociación mujeres de Argentina
Bahamas
Equality Bahamas Hollaback! Bahamas
Bolivia
Violeta Ross/ Red Nacional personas con VIH
Red de Mujeres Afrolatinoamericanas, Afrocaribeñas y de la Diáspora
Brasil
Articulação de Mulheres Brasileiras
CEFEMINA
Colombia
Colombia Diversa
Ecuador
La Coordinadora Juvenil por la Equidad de Género
Colectiva Salud Mujeres Ecuador
El Salvador
Colectiva feminista para el Desarrollo local
CEMUJER El Salvador
Guatemala
Red Latinoamericana y Caribeña de jóvenes por los derechos sexuales y reproductivos (REDLAC)
Red de Jóvenes para la Incidencia política INCIDEJOVEN
Honduras
Red de Mafio
Jamaica
Jamaica Network of Rural Women Producers
Nicaragua
Red Latinoamericana y Caribeña de jóvenes por los derechos sexuales y reproductivos (REDLAC)
Red Nacional de Juventudes por los Derechos Sexuales y Derechos Reproductivos de Nicaragua
Panamá
Mujeres con Dignidad y Derecho de Panama (MDDP)
Paraguay
Centro de documentación y estudios
Perú
Chola Contravisual
Puerto Rico
Amnistía Internacional - Comité de Genero
República Dominica (Dominican Republic)
Centro de Investigación para la Acción Femeninas (CIPAF)
Colectiva Mujer y Salud
Trinidad and Tobago
Association of Female Executives of Trinidad and Tobago (AFETT) Caribbean Association for Feminist Research and Action (CAFRA) Trinidad and Tobago CAISO Domestic Violence Survivors Reaching Out Down Syndrome Family Network Faculty of Law, University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus Family Planning Association of Trinidad and Tobago (FPATT)
Grassroots Organisations Operating Together in Sisterhood in Trinidad & Tobago - GROOTS T&T
Hindu Women's Organization of Trinidad and Tobago Maloney Senior Activity Centre Maloney Women’s Group Mamatoto Resource and Birth Centre Network of NGOs of Trinidad and Tobago for the Advancement of Women PSI Caribbean Say Something Silver Lining Foundation WOMANTRA Women’s Caucus Women Working for Social Progress (Workingwomen) Young Women’s Christian Association of Trinidad and Tobago (YWCATT) Women’s Institute for Alternative Development (WINAD)
Uruguay
Colectivo Ovejas Negras
Asociación de Mujeres Rurales del Uruguay (AMRU)
Red de Mujeres Rurales
Mujer Política y Democracia
Red Guapas en Movimiento
Grupo Visión Nocturna
Iniciativas Sanitarias
Individuals
Cecilia Ramírez Rivas
Claudia Anzorena
Elisa Montiel
Emilia Díaz
Glenda Joanna Wetherborn
Herminda González Inostroza
Mabel Vilela
Michelle Isava
Monica Gomes
Silvia Salinas Mulder
Yeimy Gavidia
Other important reading:
If you or your organization are in support of ending child marriage, please add your name to the comments, so we can continue to build our Coalition STRONG.
"There is strength in numbers, yes, but even more so in collective good will. For those endeavors are supported by mighty forces unseen." ~ Richelle E. Goodrich