President Guillermo Lasso met with women’s organizations to discuss “the other pandemic, which is violence against women in all its expressions and in all its areas.”

Ecuadorian president, Guillermo Lasso, met on October 4th, 2022, with representatives of women’s organizations at the Carondelet Palace to discuss what he called the other pandemic: violence against women.

The president said the phenomenon will be analyzed in all its dimensions and in all its angles.

After the femicide of María Belén Bernal at the Police School, the Government has announced that it will reinforce the work to reduce femicides in the country.

Last week, for example, the Executive announced the creation of a new dialogue table to deal with issues of violence against women.

And last Tuesday, October 4th, the government announced that by executive decree the president ordered a single record of violence that will be in charge of the Human Rights Secretariat and no longer the Ministry of the Interior.

Paola Flores, Secretary of Human Rights, announced the other actions that were defined in the meeting:

• The institutional framework of the Human Rights Secretariat will be strengthened through the proposal to create the governing ministry.
• Improved coordination with parish, municipal, and provincial governments to strengthen local protection systems in the area of ​​human rights.
• The political tenures will have permanent training in the mention of administrative measures regarding gender violence.
• Budgets for shelters and care centers will be increased to guarantee services for women and children who are victims of violence.
• The information system regarding victims of femicide will be strengthened.
• A territorial model articulated with the Planning Secretariat that guarantees the decentralized services of the Executive at the country level will be developed.

The national director of Access to Justice Services of the Council of the Judiciary, Solanda Goyes, indicated that “it has been proposed to carry out a focused and comprehensive policy that deals mainly with cases of femicide and violent deaths of women, which have increased in the last two years.”

The representative of the National Coordinator of Black Women (Conamune) of Ecuador, María Luisa Hurtado, pointed out that the meeting “has been very important to propose proposals on the femicide that is taking place at the country level, and where women blacks are also immersed.”

On October 18th, there will be new meetings between the Executive and the women’s organizations participating in this dialogue to follow up on the proposals and measures adopted.

According to feminist organizations, there are at least 206 femicides that have occurred since the beginning of 2022, which is the highest figure since this crime was classified in 2014.