Women's human rights in Argentina: advances, setbacks and the tasks ahead. (National Contexts).

Argentina entered the new century with a very favorable legal framework for women's human rights. The last traumatic stage of the 20th century, the military dictatorship of 1976-83, was reversed by several new victories and by the full enjoyment of other achievements which that nefarious period practically had eliminated.

With the recovery of the civil right to elect political representatives, a much more active women's rights movement took shape in our country. When the United Nations launched in 1975 what it called "The International Year of Women" and the decade of the same name to follow, the event caused hardly a ripple in Argentina. The absence of many activists and the repressive political situation made it impossible to respond to this agenda. However, despite such unfavorable conditions, some feminists continued their work on a modest scale.

Even before December 10, 1983, (1) women who had had to flee Argentina during the military regime began to return. They reestablished contact with former activists, formed loosely organized groups, and became the force behind very important changes in the legal situation of Argentine women.

In 1985, Argentina ratified the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). In 1994, the National Constituent Convention incorporated the ratification of the CEDAW into the text of the new constitution. As Mabel Gabarra recalls, one of the driving forces behind this achievement was the Corriente 8 de Matzo (8th of March Movement), which linked feminist militants from diverse sectors and lobbied legislators in the National Congress. (2)

The 1980s ended with two new advances: the Filiation and Inheritance Statute (1985) and the Divorce Law (1987). These new juridical instruments brought women greater legal standing within the family and enabled them to regularize certain situations, such as de facto unions, not contemplated in the previous legislation.

In 1992, the law on quotas for elective office was approved. Although Argentine women won the vote in 1951 and had been elected to the legislature without any quota law, the policy within the traditional parties after the implementation of the so-called "Evita Law" allowing women's suffrage did not permit women to maintain this same level of participation on candidate slates.

During the 1990s, laws began slowly to emerge to deal with domestic violence. They empowered police agencies and provincial judicial authorities to establish preventive measures.

Of course, all the conquests achieved at the legislative level have and always have had a cost. The complex dynamics involved in the process of presenting a bill for analysis by congressional committees, gaining approval for its consideration on the floor and its eventual passage as a law all provide innumerable opportunities for negotiation and lobbying. As might be expected, groups opposed to the approval of the international conventions vigorously attacked some of the legislative initiatives.

The previously mentioned 1994 incorporation of the CEDAW into the Argentine constitution is an illustrative example. This advance was later sandbagged by then president Carlos Menem who instituted the national celebration of the Day of the Unborn Child, a clear wink at the powerful conservative sector of the Catholic Church still smarting from seeing a UN text become part of the Argentine constitution. While women's groups had scored an advance through their lobbying, they had to cede ground on another front.

Currently, the ratification of the CEDAW Optional, or Facultative, Protocol is facing a critical moment. Powerful Catholic groups fought to keep the issue of ratification off the Senate floor, arguing that it would open the door to the legalization of abortion on demand.

Entering the New Century

Through this retrospective we can see what Argentine women have gained over the last 20 years with respect to their rights. However, considering these advances also requires a look at the balance of what is still to be achieved. The complex web of the legal system, from bottom to top, all the way from municipal ordinances, provincial laws, national laws up to international conventions, seems sometimes to exist far from the reality of women's lives.

For those who set out every day to work or who are forced to scavenge for food in garbage landfills on the periphery of the big cities, these laws seem to have little bearing on their daily lives.

Although our country ratified the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women in 1996 (the 1994 Convention of Belem do Para), not all Argentine provinces have promulgated regulations for its application. Despite the creation in 1985 of the Women's Department under the auspices of the office of the presidency, provincial delegations or Women's Sections still have not been established throughout the entire nation.

Unfortunately, these inconsistencies have to do with political issues far removed from the real needs of women. The serious delays lead to many damaging consequences. The lack of budgets and resources for implementing programs in the area of domestic violence, for example, shows clearly what it means not to have a national program nor the agencies needed to carry it out.

In addition, the inequities of the neoliberal system in which our country is inserted and their impact on the weakest members of society must be considered. Women, girls and adolescents especially suffer from these injustices.

But simply noting the impact of the resource shortfall for a country ignores the other discriminations that women and girls face. In addition to the debt default, there are changes involving ethics, transparency, commitment and the belief that without equity we can advance but little.

The Situation in Figures

According to official statistics, some 3,400 babies are born each year to mothers aging from 9 to 14, with broad variations between Buenos Aires and the outlying provinces. Repeated births among adolescent mothers put their health and that of their children at risk. Over 10% of all maternal deaths correspond to young women from 10 to 19 years of age. (3)

Adolescent pregnancy and maternity especially affect girls and young women with less education living in a variety of situations: young girls still living with their parents; single mothers (about 40%); and young women who marry or live with their partner and become pregnant as a result.

The children of younger women are often the fruit of imposed sexual relations, including rape and abuse. Generally, the younger the mother is, the older her sexual companion. Facing early motherhood, the adolescent often quits school; in addition to her new responsibility, she usually is already caring for younger siblings and assuming household chores.

In addition, minors account for 15% of all prostitution in the major Argentine cities. Young women and men from 12 to 15 years of age are subjected to exploitation by relatives, partners or pimps. (4)

The Impact of the Model and Traditions

The neoliberal model applied in the Latin American region since the beginning of the 1990s effectively intersects with socio-cultural traditions and Catholic fundamentalism readily disposed to make common cause with the State to directly undercut women's pursuit of their human rights.

As Lynn Freedman argues, "patriarchal social structures that function in a climate of deepening poverty create a level of economic dependence and vulnerability that contributes directly to women's inability to assert control over their reproductive and sexual lives." (5)

Following Freedman's analysis, we can see that research has shown how economic crises sharpen the conflicts within patriarchal communities and families, affecting women physically and mentally through, for example, an increase in domestic violence, including marital rape.

At the same time, for the feminist journalist Marta Vasallo, "the Vatican campaign has had such an impact in Latin America that rulings granting women 'permission' for tubal ligations or interruption of anencephalic pregnancies now appear as great achievements when the Argentine Penal Code has permitted therapeutic abortion all along." (6)

Another issue mentioned by Vasallo on which feminists are not in clear agreement is that of the exploitation involved in prostitution. "Prostitution is not seen as violence. At best, when the women who carry out this activity are treated with dignity, the suppositions inherent in the activity itself are not questioned. Meanwhile, prostitution, including that of girls, increases." (7)

On top of these injustices, discrimination against individuals with non-heterosexual orientations reveals an even harsher situation of rights violations. Lesbians are practically invisible even in the most progressive public policies. Homophobia, both internal and external, locks these women in the closet.

Female sexuality continues to be controlled by both the State, through its legal discourse, and by many other social agents which preserve and reinforce obligatory heterosexuality as women's "natural" choice.

The treatment of these issues in the communications media, even alternative ones, remains weak. Women continue to be portrayed in advertising and on television either as sexual objects or as providers and nurturers and as "natural" targets of violence.

For many feminists, such as psychologist Liliana Pauluzzi, education on sexuality and on the prevention of violence and child abuse continues to produce allergic reactions in society. Sexism prevails in school textbooks, and teachers and women who want to change their content cannot force a debate on the issue; as a result, stereotyped roles mostly remain.

Future Challenges: Information is Power ... and Commitment

Censorship and control over the bodies of hundreds of thousands of adult and adolescent women and girls in our country take another form as well. While legal frameworks on violence, reproductive health and sexual rights exist, people do not to have access to them, and public institutions do not take the responsibility for disseminating the information necessary to implement these rights.

As feminist women in Argentina, we must educate ourselves in order to demand that the State fulfill its responsibilities and to engage in effective advocacy--"the public defense of ideas, principles or the promotion of government measures" (8)--and get good results. We must learn about the tools at our disposal and how to use them.

Returning to grassroots work is essential in order to generate consciousness, to see what women's real needs are, and to create powerful links among different social actors: disempowered women, activists or members of NGOs, and decision-makers within the State apparatus.

Today's serious crisis of representation provides an opportunity to put into practice "the right to participation: women's involvement in neighborhood assemblies and protests," as Eva Giberti reminds us. (9)

Women who participate in the picket lines, in the soup kitchens, or by resisting repossession of their lands, women workers who take over the closed factories are all teaching us that other forms of participation are possible.

The alliances based on common needs will help us to reclaim not only our most basic rights but also the more difficult ones: from the right to work and eat, to the right to remain in our country and not be forced to emigrate, to the right to health, to education, to decriminalized abortion.

To place these issues on the agenda of the communications media, we need to look at what communicational strategies the women's and/or feminist movements need. An essential element of these strategies must be an alliance between the movement and communicators. A new discourse must be developed for public debate on these issues because both the right-wing and pro-life groups have begun to adapt feminist discourses developed to defend our rights.

This purloined discourse sets us at a communicational crossroads. The challenge is to creatively rename our problems clearly and forcefully, to insist on telling and retelling our history to liberate it from fragmentation and forgetfulness.

Rosario, Santa Fe, Argentina June, 2002

Notes

(1.) Eds. Note: December 10. 1983, marks the restoration of democracy in Argentina, when Raul Alfonsin became the first civilian president after seven years of military dictatorship.

(2.) Personal communication with Mabel Gabarra, May 2002.

(3.) Colectivo de ONG de Infancia y Adolescencia (2002). "Informe de ONG argentinas sobre la aplicaci6n de la Convencion sobre los Derechos de la Infancia." February.

(4.) UNICEF (2001). La ninez prostituida. Estudio sobre la explotacion sexual comercial infantil. Argentina: UNICEF, November.

(5.) Freedman, Lynn P. (1995). "Censorship and Manipulation on Reproductive Health Information. An Issue of Human Rights and Women's Health," in The Right to Know. Human Rights and Access to Reproductive Health Information. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: ARTICLE 19 and University of Pennsylvania Press.

(6.) Personal communication with Marta Vasallo, May 26, 2002.

(7.) Ibid.

(8.) Rosenberg, Martha (2002). "Nota introductoria para la version en espanol," in Estrategias para el acceso al aborto legal y seguro. Un estudio en 11 paises. Martha Rosenberg, ed., Translation by Alicia de Santos, Buenos Aires: Foro de los Derechos Reproductivos. (Original English-language version: Advocating for Abortion Access: Eleven country studies, Barbara Klugman and Debbie Budlender, eds., Johannesburg, South Africa: Women's Health Project, 2001.)

(9.) Personal communication with Eva Gilberti, June 13, 2002.

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Gabriela De Cicco is an Argentine writer and lesbian-feminist activist. She researches and writes about women in the arts, women's human rights, new information and communications technologies, and feminist theory. Irene Ocampo is a writer, journalist and translator. She researches women's and feminist movements in Argentina. Both are founders and coordinators of the Red Informativa de Mujeres de Argentina (RIMA, Argentina Women's Information Network). For two years, they produced the radio program "Con el agua al cuello" (Up to the Neck) on a community FM station in Rosario, bringing a feminist perspective to the problems women face.