Regional Evaluation of Access to Justice as a Prevention Mechanism to End Violence Against Women 2011-2015

Access to justice for women and girls victims of violence is one of the key areas in which UN Women works, as one of the strategies to end the violence and discrimination that affects women and girls in all the countries of the region.

In the last decade we have seen an improvement in the countries of the region’s legislative frameworks, as regards the prevention, attention, protection, justice and reparation for VAW/G victims. But, despite the progress made, the treaty follow-up mechanisms (CEDAW and MESECVI) and the main bodies of the Inter-American System of Human Rights (Inter-American Commission of Human Rights and the Inter- American Court of Human Rights), have identified structural problems that impede access to and receipt of justice on issues regarding violence against women. This shows that the efforts to combat impunity and to ensure the realization of women’s human rights require significant improvement across the board of institutions which are responsible for access to justice.

The main purpose of this regional evaluation is to document the work carried out by UN Women to increase and facilitate access to justice for women who have been victims of violence ¡ and put an end to impunity in the region of Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as analysing their achievements and outcomes and identifying lessons learned that can serve as the basis to design a regional programme on the subject.