Dominican Republic - Women facing increased risks

Dominican organisations focused on the rights of women are bringing in assistance from all over Latin America to aid them in their fight against Article 30 in the recently approved constitution which states that the right to life is inviolable from conception until death. Ahead of the formal signing of the constitution by President Leonel Fernandez on Dec. 6, women's rights leaders from Chile, Mexico, Peru, Nicaragua, Brazil and Uruguay met with local leaders at an all day forum here and related the experiences of campaigns in their respective countries. The Nov. 24 forum is only the first of several that will be held across the hemisphere, including one in California in which Alice Walker will be a keynote speaker, followed by conferences in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico. Margarita Zapata, of the Zapata Family Foundation in Mexico, opened the conference, saying that this initial conference had been planned for the Dominican Republic in order to honour the Mirabel Sisters, martyrs for justice, for whom the International Day Against Violence to Women is named. Zapata said that all over the region legislators were exercising their political power against the wishes of the majority of their population, the women. Observing that while most statistics on gender violence reveal that much of it is family based, the violence of the state against women is strong and persistent.