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14-year-old Chiara Paez from Rufino, Sante Fe province, Argentina, was murdered by her boyfriend in May, 2015. After a series of violent attacks against women and girls in the country, Paez's death was a tipping point, sparking mass demonstrations nationwide. The protests are likely to have sped up the development of Argentina's National Plan of Action for the Prevention, Assistance and Eradication of Violence against Women, which was launched on July 26.
The 3-year plan, starting in 2017, with a budget of 750 million pesos (US$39 750 000) calls for change in societal attitudes that normalise violence against women. The initiative sets out more than 200 measures and actions to be implemented, including establishment of a network of refuge shelters for women, mass public awareness campaigns to promote a phone line that provides counselling and support for women, electronic tagging of men with restraining orders to aid compliance, introduction of gender violence awareness in the national school curriculum, microcredit initiatives for women to help them enter the labour market, and the development by the health ministry of a national framework protocol for comprehensive care of women experiencing violence. Implementation will be reviewed in 2019.
Argentina's plan is ambitious and wide-ranging, with actions across several sectors of government and society. The strong focus on prevention is to be applauded. Some of the measures being promoted are not grounded in high-quality evidence but, in a field with many research gaps, experimental approaches that are monitored and assessed for effectiveness are welcome. However, changing entrenched cultural norms that promote violence against women is likely to take longer than 3 years; the plan needs to have financial and governmental support beyond this timeframe, including investment in evaluation and learning as programmes are scaled up.
The initiative shows that there is political will to address violence against women in Argentina. The plan was endorsed and launched by the President of Argentina, Mauricio Macri, who took office in December, 2015. Such high-level leadership for preventing and responding to violence against women and girls should be a model for other countries in Latin America—and beyond.
