Latin America and the Caribbean has made significant progress on gender equality in the last few decades. Back in 1970, not a single country had legislation against domestic violence. Today, many countries do. Despite this, one-quarter of women ages 15-49 in Latin America and the Caribbean have experienced physical or sexual violence in their lifetime. The rates range from 16%-42% across countries and femicide rates in the region are among the highest in the world, with an upward tendency in the past 30 years.
Let’s take a minute for these figures to sink in. Think of your closest four female friends or family members. One of them is likely to have experienced sexual and gender-based violence in their lifetime. Sexual and gender-based violence spans the home, the workplace, public spaces and even the internet and is rooted largely in social norms and gender stereotypes. It is a complex phenomenon influenced by interrelated factors.
Challenges to Measure Sexual and Gender-Based Violence
Data on the prevalence of sexual and gender-based violence is difficult to collect. Due to fear of repercussions, and because the perpetrator is often an individual with a personal or economic bond to the victim, self-reporting by many women tends to underestimate the true prevalence of the phenomenon. When collected in the framework of national surveys, it is done rather intermittently by countries, with large time periods without gathering information. The lack of a consistent schedule and funding for surveys on the topic suggests that this information is not viewed as valuable in comparison to other data collected regularly in other sectors or areas.
Furthermore, there is scarce data in the region about the costs of sexual and gender-based violence. The direct costs for the victim are often intangible or unmeasurable (i.e. mental health, trauma, fear). Few efforts have been made across the region to calculate the costs associated with the services provided to respond to this phenomenon by the health, justice, security and other sectors involved. Moreover, the indirect costs related to loss of productivity are often also difficult to calculate.
What We Know About the Cost of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence
Despite these challenges, there are a few illustrating numbers available:
- The World Economic Forum indicates the costs could be at least 5 percent of the global gross domestic product (GDP).
- The World Bank calculates that in some countries, violence against women is estimated to cost up to 3.7% of their GDP.
- Studies cited by the IMF calculate this number to represent between 1 and 2 percent of GDP.
- UN Women calculates violence against women at around 2 percent of GDP.
- A recent study by the IDB calculates the costs of overall crime and violence amounts to 3.4% of the region’s GDP. But as mentioned, data on the specific costs of sexual and gender-based violence in the region is still scarce.
To understand the magnitude of the few numbers available, consider that Latin America and the Caribbean spends less than 2% of its GDP in social assistance and a bit over 4% of its GDP in education.
Four Key Areas to Address Sexual and Gender-Based Violence
Eliminating sexual and gender-based violence requires a multifaceted and multisectoral approach, including legal and institutional reforms, education, civil society engagement, the provision of different public services, among others. And implementing such an approach is challenging due to the difficulty of coordinating different stakeholders in designing and implementing solutions, as well as to align political will and secure resource allocation.
In recent years the IDB has aimed to:
- Incorporate the prevention of sexual and gender-based violence into Bank operations in the areas of citizen security, health, public transportation, and urban development;
- Support scalable, high-quality comprehensive services for survivors of sexual and gender-based violence
- Promote regulations that protect girls, women, and LGBTQ+ individuals; and,
- Support boys and men through piloting and evaluating masculinity interventions that change behavior through changing social norms.
Stating the Obvious Regarding Sexual and Gender-Based Violence
Eradicating physical, sexual, psychological, and cyber violence is imperative. It allows women and other groups facing high rates of sexual and gender-based violence to exercise lives with self-determination, a basic human right. We need to start at the beginning. What is not measured does not exist. And if society does not know how much it costs to respond to it, it is doubtful the region will ever get around to prioritizing and investing to solve crimes that are often invisible.
In the context of the 16 days of activism to eliminate gender-based violence and the commitment of the IDB to actively work and engage on this issue, it is important to highlight the significance of prioritizing data collection on a phenomenon that affects not only women, but all members of society.
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