Project on women survivors of gender violence

This Thursday, May 28, the results of the project “Experiences of women survivors of gender violence in the use of the specialized justice system: lessons and recommendations from Ecuador” were held.

The research involved the University of Azuay, the University of Birmingham and The Institute for Global Innovation.

"Until now we had made partial presentations of the results, aimed at particular groups, but now it was an open event, aimed at the university community and state and non-state entities that work on gender equality," explained Silvana Tapia, head of research and professor at the Faculty of Legal Sciences of the UDA.

In addition to the presentation, the official report of findings was delivered, which has been captured in an interactive digital document diagrammed by the University of Birmingham.

This material may serve as reference material for all interested persons, including the specialized judges themselves and other public and private servants, such as the staff of the Free Legal Clinic of our and other universities.

“The next phase of the project is already designed and consists of ethnographic-type research to understand the perspectives that non-mainstream women's movements (grassroots movements) have about possible alternatives to criminal justice in the case of violence against women ”, explained Tapia.

The research teacher indicated that the work carried out to date revealed that criminal justice is very alien to people's daily reality “and requires from them a series of social and economic empowerments that they do not possess precisely because they are marginalized by a system with features patriarchal, and for a State that only offers them the possibility of litigating, but not many opportunities for social mobility ”.

This second phase had to be temporarily suspended due to the pandemic, due to the impossibility of carrying out the planned field work.

“For this reason, we have proposed and have already approved another project that is related to the differential impact of the pandemic on the lives of Ecuadorian academic women, particularly in relation to their use of time, their labor and economic rights, and their right to a life free of violence ”.

This new project has a methodology based on virtual ethnography, so it can be conducted at this time, and will address the resources - or the absence thereof - that women feel they have to protect themselves against a potential double workload, wage cuts or loss of paid work.

"It will also explore the exponential increase in the time spent in reproductive and care work, while many people live with potential aggressors, since the majority of Ecuadorian women, according to the 2019 INEC survey, have suffered gender-based violence to throughout their lives ”, concluded Tapia.