Costa Rica to consider declaring street harassment a crime.
| Autor | Rodriguez, George |
Costa Rican women's organizations have had it with gender-based street harassment, a deeply rooted cultural male conduct--ranging from piropos (compliments) to abusive physical contact--which goes basically unpunished.
Gathered in the Alianza Colectivos, several of those groups are in the process of drafting a Ley Contra el Acoso Callejero (law against street harassment), a bill they plan to introduce by December in the Asamblea Legislativa (AL)--Costa Rica's unicameral, 57-member parliament.
In this Central American nation, gender-based street harassment is a contravention that, in case the offender is actually accused and found guilty, carries a fine as sole punishment.
Although the groups' initiative stems from women's expressed need to walk down Costa Rican streets and use other public spaces free of such pressure, the bill extends to cover harassment based on other factors--such as race, age, sexual identity, disability.
The bill, promoted by Alianza Colectivos--a gathering of women's rights organizations--and announced last month during a press conference at the AL, is backed by the congresswomen making up the Grupo de Mujeres Parlamentarias, as well as by several of their male colleagues.
Once its expected prompt passage takes place, the bill will strengthen Costa Rica's ample human rights legislation, which includes the Ley contra la Violencia Domestica and the Ley de Penalizacion de la Violencia contra las Mujeres.
This country has also ratified international and continental instruments such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), adopted by the UN in 1979, and the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women--also known as the Belem do Para Convention, named after the northern Brazilian city where it was adopted in 1994.
Proponents battle all types of discrimination
Tatiana Saprissa, coordinator of Piropos o Acoso (Compliments or Harassment), said, "The gender struggle is not only for women, since we also fight street harassment ... against the LGBTI [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex] community, and we also want to penalize racist and xenophobic harassment as a crime. It's any kind of pressure happening on the street that affects us all, men and women."
In Alianza Colectivos leader Angela Delgado's coinciding view, "Public space is where gender-based violence against women takes place, and also against the trans...
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