April 30, 2019

Chile passed a law to punish public sexual harassment

located:	Chile
editor:	Magdalena Rojo

The National Congress of Chile passed a new law earlier this month that makes public sexual harassment a punishable crime. It will carry fines and possibly jail time for those convicted of sexual harassment on the streets.

The law is the result of the work of the organisation Observatory Against Harassment in Chile, which has been campaigning for the legislation since 2015. "We saw a necessity because sexual violence was going on in a systematic way in public spaces," said María José Guerrero, head of the organisation, to Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Observatory Against Harassment in Chile conducted a survey four years ago according to which 3 out of 4 people had experienced some form of harassment in the streets, 85 percent of the women asked have had this experience.

The law is also a reaction to various protests against violence on women in the country. Many of the protests took place in Chilean universities throughout 2018. The protesters were not only focusing on sexual violence, but also the lack of women in positions of authorities or female authors on the reading lists.

Feminist movements across Latin America joined the #MeToo movement and used the opportunity to point at sexual violence and abuse across the continent. In the region, the movements use its hashtags #NiUnaMenos (Not One Less) or #NiUnaMas (Not One More).

Many Latin American countries are known for high percentages of experiences with sexual or domestic violence. Very often, the reason is a widespread "macho" culture, which also makes it difficult for victims of any kind of violence to file a complaint, as it is often a woman who is considered responsible for what she experienced. Observatory Against Harassment in Chile hopes that this can also change thanks to the new passed law. "This project – even though it still needs to be enacted – contributes to the preparation and better education about this kind of sexual violence, not only for the civil society, but also for the institutions who receive complaints of these types of crimes," says María José Guerrero.

The first country that passed a similar law was Peru in 2015. However, according to the local Ombudsman's Office, this February only 20 of the 43 districts of Metropolitan Lima have established municipal ordinances that sanction sexual street harassment. Very often women in Peru do not complain as they do not have knowledge of such law.

As Peruvian experience shows it, passing the law is one thing – perhaps the first important step – but there are many more steps to follow. Changing the perception of public sexual harassment as something normal across Latin American countries needs intervention from many different sectors. The change of a prevailing culture of machismo into feminism does not happen overnight.

Photo: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0, Colectivo La Luz, via Flickr