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SHADOW REPORT

STATE OF COMPLIANCE OF THE CONVENTION ON THE ELIMINATION OF ALL FORMS OF DISCRIMINATION AGAINST WOMEN ON THE PART OF THE PARAGUAYAN STATE

Executive Summary

Although important advances have been made as regards legislation and public policies adopted by the State of Paraguay, obstacles and voids still persist and there are insufficient actions to guarantee both the effective fulfillment of the Convention of the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination (CEDAW), and the application of the human rights of women towards the building and consolidation of their citizenship.

In this report, the most critical core issues regarding discrimination due to reasons of gender are highlighted, as these knotty issues are the ones that require efficient actions on the part of the State:

1. High maternal mortality rates and scarce access to health care services continue to persist, this being one of the greatest spheres of inequality in Paraguay. The Paraguayan State has not derogated the Article that incriminates the practice of abortion, one of the chief causes of maternal deaths.  The penalization of abortion is discriminatory, affects the lives of women living in poverty, and has a clearly sexist bias. In this sense, the recommendations of the CEDAW Committee have not been taken into account.  The deficiencies in the functioning of health policies may be noted in such indicators as the lack of supply of basic goods related to the Family Planning Program and the reduction of budget allocations destined for the acquisition of contraceptive methods.

2.   As regards domestic violence against women, the increase of the denunciations of domestic violence has been registered, but a series of obstacles still persist that impede the effectiveness of Paraguayan Law Number 1600.  In addition, the women that denounce such violence are newly victimized when they report at local Health Centers, Police Stations or Justices of the Peace, these being the institutions at which denouncements are to be made, as established by the aforementioned law.  There is a lack of adequate institutional infrastructure that would guarantee timely and skilled care of the victims, in a framework of privacy.  Efforts should continue to publicize this law and to train judicial staff, police and the employees of public health institutions.

3.   Paraguay is one of the most unequal countries in the world, as half of the population is poor and there is a marked feminization of poverty.  Paraguayan women continue to hold jobs with lower wages.  There is no full application as regards the protection of maternity and not even measures to sanction the lack of compliance of rights guaranteed in the Labor Code have been adopted.  There are no public policies to encourage the provision of supportive social services that are necessary in order to allow parents to combine family obligations with their work responsibilities, and to permit their participation in public affairs.  Among the discriminations that persist in the work environment, one finds the sexual harassment of women workers and the dismissal or firing of employees because of their sexual orientation.  One of the worst forms of legal discrimination that continues to exist, as regards daily work hours, social security and other social benefits, is that related to remunerated domestic labor, performed chiefly by women.

4.   The Paraguayan State counts with no policies for the modification of the socio-cultural patterns of the conduct of men and women, with a view towards the elimination of prejudices and customary practices of discrimination.  In spite of the educational reform carried out in both basic education and middle schools, there continues to be discrimination of rural peasant women, impoverished members of the population and the monolingual speakers of the Guarani language as regards their access to quality education.

5.   Rural and indigenous women face situations of greater inequality and inequity in all fields.  The Paraguayan State lacks public policies to promote the access of women to land ownership, which would guarantee their settling through access to property deeds, credit and technical support.  Given the grave problem of access to land, the Paraguayan State has implemented repressive policies characterized by violent evictions and displacements, in which cases peasant women are the victims of cruel and discriminatory treatment.

SHADOW REPORT

STATE OF COMPLIANCE OF THE CONVENTION ON THE ELIMINATION OF ALL FORMS OF DISCRIMINATION AGAINST WOMEN ON THE PART OF THE PARAGUAYAN STATE

I.           Introduction

This Shadow Report, in the light of international law as regards human rights and the previous recommendations of the Committee, revises the Third and Fourth Combined Periodic Reports (CEDAW/C/PAR/3-4, February 11, 2004) and the Fifth Periodic Report (CEDAW/C/PAR/5, May 25, 2004) presented by the State Party of Paraguay to the Committee.  The purpose of the present Shadow Report is to point out, from the perspective of the civil society, the advances, difficulties and retrogressions of the State in the adoption of measures to fulfill compliance with the Convention.

The report is presented by the Latin American and Caribbean Committee for the Defense of the Rights of Women (CLADEM Paraguay) and the  Coordinación de Mujeres del Paraguay (CMP) - Coordination of Women of Paraguay.  It was elaborated by a widely diversified work team[1] and incorporates the contributions of civil society that were gathered through consultation with the citizenry.  Likewise, the report counts with the supportive backing of the following organizations[2]:

-         Aireana, Grupo por los Derechos de las Lesbianas [Group for the Rights of Lesbians]

-         Alter Vida, Centro de Estudios y Formación para el Ecodesarrollo (*)

-         Amnesty International Paraguay

-         Asistencia, Prevención y Rehabilitación en Violencia Masculina (APREVIM Paraguay) [Assistance, Prevention and Rehabilitation of Masculine Violence ]

-         Asociación de Abogadas del Paraguay (ADAP) [Association of Women Lawyers of Paraguay] (*) (**)

-         Base de Acción Educativa (BECA) [Base for Educational Action] (*)

-         Centro de Documentación y Estudios  (CDE) [Center for Documentation and Studies ] (*)

-         Círculo de Abogadas del Paraguay (CAP) [Circle of Women Lawyers of Paraguay] (*) (**)

-         Colectivo 25 de Noviembre [Collective November 25] (*) (**)

-         Coordinadora de Mujeres Rurales e Indígenas (CONAMURI) [Coordinating Body of Rural and Indigenous Women]

-         Comité de Género de la Cooperativa Coomecipar Ltda. [Committee on Gender of the Coomecipar Limitada Co-op]

-         Central Unitaria de Trabajadores (CUT) [Unitary Central of Workers ]

-         Fundación Kuña Aty [Kuña Aty Foundation] (*) (**)

-         Fundación Centro de Asistencia Integral (CEDAI) [Center for Integral Assistance Foundation]  (**)

-         Grupo de Acción Gay, Lésbico y Transgénero (GAG-LT) [Gay, Lesbian and Transgender Action Group]

-         Grupo de Estudios de la Mujer Paraguaya - Centro Paraguayo de Estudios Sociológicos GEMPA - CEPES) [Group for the Study of Paraguayan Women - Paraguayan Center of Sociological Studies] (*)

-         Kuña Róga (*)

-         Mesa Coordinadora de Mujeres de San Lorenzo [Coordinating Board of Women of San Lorenzo]

-         Mujeres por la Democracia [Women for Democracy] (*)

-         Pastoral Social de la Mujer [Womens' Social Pastoral Service]

-         Red de Mujeres Trabajadoras Munícipes del Paraguay [Network of Women Municipal Workers of Paraguay]

-         Red de Mujeres Políticas  [Network of Political Women]

-         Servicio Jurídico Integral para el Desarrollo Agrario (SEIJA) [Integral Juridical Service for Agrarian Development ]

-         Unión de Mujeres Paraguaya (UMPA) [Paraguayan Union of Women].

In the first part of the present Shadow Report, general observations are presented as regards the Fifth Governmental Report, and in the second part the specific observations pertaining to Articles 1 - 16 of the Convention are presented.

II.        General Observations regarding the Fifth Periodic Report presented by Paraguay

Delimitation of the locus or place of the report:  The place from which the Paraguayan State has elaborated its report is not clear, since the report does not allow for precise statement of the responsibilities born by the State as agent of emission of the same.  The actions taken by the governmental and non-governmental agencies are presented in an undifferentiated manner, thus giving the impression that the report was prepared jointly by the Secretariat for Women of the Presidency of the Republic of Paraguay (SMPR) and by the women’s movement.  However, this is not the real situation as exponents of the civil society had no participation as regards the elaboration of the governmental report.

Specification of the objective and the procedure for the elaboration of the report:  An explanation is lacking as regards explicit details of the state agencies or sectors that have participated in the elaboration of the governmental report, being that its fundamental objective is to take into account the responsibilities of the Paraguayan State as a whole.  Clarity is lacking in regard to the governmental actions and these must be clearly differentiated from the actions carried out by international agencies.

Information about the implemented measures and the advances made with respect to the Recommendations of the Committee:  The report should have given information about the degree in which the recommendations were taken into account within the public sector agenda.  Likewise, it should have stated the advances and measures that have been introduced or that will be implemented in the future in order to reverse the problems that were pointed out.  In addition, it is important to make specific reference to the budgetary allocations, as well as the additional resources that were pledged in other corresponding cases.

Organization of the information for better comprehension and correct evaluation of the facts, events and deeds: The measures implemented by the Paraguayan State should be identified, indicating the advances, retrogressions or standstills by means of clear indicators, and with a differentiation between procedures and results.  In this respect, it is recommended that there be greater adjustment to the guidelines related to the form and the content of the reports that must be presented by the State Party.

Exactitude in the denomination and content of the Articles:  The denomination and content of the Articles are incomprehensible in many cases, as it seems that the drafters of the report did not take into account the content of the Articles of the Convention and the General Recommendations of the Committee.  This deficit has led to the exclusion of important achievements, such as the Tripartite panel for Follow-up on Beijing, which is integrated by the State (SMPR), civil society (CMP) and the United Nations system (UNDP, UNICEF, UNFPA), and was not mentioned at all in the report.  It should be pointed out that this work was carried out in a joint manner by representatives of the State, United Nations agencies and the women’s organizations.

III.      Articles 1 and 2

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) was ratified by the Republic of Paraguay in 1985 and was incorporated into national legislation with a hierarchy that was almost on par with the Constitution, which means that in the order of preference of the States’ internal laws the Convention is situated above laws, decrees, resolutions, ordinances and judicial sentences (Articles 137 and 141 of the National Constitution)[3], and possesses the same legal standing as the National Constitution, as these instruments may not be denounced by the State except through the mechanism of constitutional amendment, which requires a referendum[4].  For this reason, the Convention is a self-executing norm, and therefore must be invoked and applied directly by the courts and by the public administration in all resolutions.  However, this principle is not followed in practice.

The prohibition of discrimination against women is guaranteed by the Constitution of Paraguay, in a general manner with regards to all civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights (Articles 46, 47, 48), and in particular with relation to the right to work (Article 88).  However, in Paraguayan legislation there exists no definition of what is to be understood as discrimination against women, nor is there any legal classification of the forms of discrimination against women that would allow for the sanction of the same.  In practice, there is no enforcement of the application of the definition contained in Article 1 of the Convention, in a direct manner, in the court and administrative cases that deal with the rights of women.

With the sole exceptions of the right to equal salary for work of equal valor, and of the right to not be discriminated against at work in the event of pregnancy, there exist no guarantees of effective judicial tutelage in Paraguayan law, nor are there any legal sanctions to be applied in the case of any direct or indirect discrimination that might be suffered by a woman, whether in the public or private spheres.

Recently, two legislative proposals have been broached regarding this issue, which is a matter that requires urgent attention.  In this sense, priority must be given to a widely participative focus that will lead to the inclusion of different perspectives about the forms of discrimination in the country.

Direct discriminations continue to persist in civil, labor and penal legislation that affect women and which form a breach or lack of compliance of the previous recommendation of the Committee[5], and of Article 2 of the CEDAW document.  These discriminations occur in the penal field, where there has still been no derogation of the articles that criminalize the practice of abortion, which in consequence results in an elevated rate of maternal mortality. Included also are those related to labor laws that apply to remunerated domestic labor, as well as discriminations in civil law that affect both married and unmarried women as regards family relations.

There are legal gaps with respect to child pornography, which therefore impedes effective fight against this issue.

IV.       Article 3

One of the measures adopted by the Paraguayan State for the application of the Convention was the creation of the Secretariat for Women of the Presidency of the Republic of Paraguay, endowed with specific faculties for the application of the Convention within the domestic arena[6], and to guarantee before the State the effective incorporation of a gender perspective in public policies.  However, adequate budgetary resources have not been allocated for the Secretariat for Women, sufficient to guarantee its full functioning, and its technical team of staff has been weakened by the removal of qualified employees following the last General Elections.  This is evidence of the great institutional weakness that prevails in the light of changes within the government, all of which aids in the failure to comply with the recommendation presented previously by the CEDAW Committee.[7]

As has been pointed out in the Third and Fourth Combined Periodic Reports, the Paraguayan State has implemented national plans tied to the human rights of women and the adoption of measures for the achievement and strengthening of equality, ever since 1994.  However, the Fifth Report for the year 2004 does not report of the continuity of the National Plan for the Prevention and Sanction of Violence Against Women, which was initiated in 1994.  Information is given though as concerns the continuity of the Second National Plan for Reproductive Health (2003-2008), as well as the launching of the Second National Plan for Equal Opportunities for Women and Men 2003-2007.

Feminine participation in the job market has increased, but women have very low wages and constitute a high percentage of workers in the informal work market, where they count with less social protection.  The Labor Code foresees non-discrimination of women for reasons due to their maternity, but in practices the compliance of this provisión by employers is not complete, and there are no public policies that encourage the provision of social services to pregnant workers.  Furthermore, there are no sanctions for the failure to fulfill this right.

Mass media become agents of discrimination in their treatment of crimes involving women - girls, adolescents and adult women -, since the victims of sexual crimes and sexual exploitation are exposed to double victimization by having their identities revealed, thus damaging their right to privacy[8].  Likewise, mass media is discriminatory in the portrayal of a sensationalist and pejorative image of women in situations involving conjugal violence and sexual crimes.  Article 27 of the National Constitution establishes that the law must regulate advertising and publicity in order to avoid discriminations based on gender, yet sexism still imbues the discourse propagated by the mass media by means of sexist language and publicity that discriminate against women.  The press devaluates women as social agents for action and reinforces a culture that is based upon stereotypes.  The State has not implemented policies to enforce compliance of the law, a fact that is not revealed by the governmental report.

In spite of the plans and programs implemented by the Paraguayan State to combat cultural factors based upon discriminations against women, education continues to be sexist and discriminatory with relation to the female population, as may been seen in more detail in the material related to Article 10.  The Paraguayan State lacks educational policies that guarantee a critical attitude towards traditional behavior patterns, and towards the modification of social and cultural conducts, but the governmental report does not take these deficiencies into account.

V.        Article 4

While the Paraguayan State does count with a favorable legal framework and formal plans, in practice, for a variety of reasons, it does not have an effective policy of affirmative action to accelerate the achievement of de facto equality.  In general, a juridical or programmatic focus that is purely formal predominates, and most measures have no programmatic connections with each other, thus failing to be sufficient to afford substantive equality.

There are three measures of affirmative action existing in current legislation in Paraguay:

a)      The quota of electoral participation, which is the lowest in the region and which exercises no effect on election results, since the traditional exclusion of females is maintained, as reported below in the text related to Article 7.

b)      In the case of women educators, there is an affirmative action clause that awards one year of tenure or recognizes one year of job seniority for each child born to the woman educator during the exercise of her teaching career, for up to five years added in this manner, as regards the computation of the years of service required for ordinary retirement, with no loss of the remaining guarantees established by the Labor Code for the protection of maternity (Article 32 of Law Number 1725/02 - Establishment of the Statutes of Educators).

c)      The order of preference granted in favor of women who are heads of households, for the awarding of land that is subject to agrarian reform, as well as with regard to the prorogation or extension of 50% of the term for the payment of installment quotas by said grantees (Articles 49, 50 and 52 of Law Number 1863/02 of the Agrarian Statutes).

In general, no special measures are applied with respect to insertion in the public sector, job markets, education and other spheres of activity, of those women that belong to certain groups of disadvantaged individuals, and who in addition to suffering discrimination for the very fact of being women, are also the object of multiple forms of discrimination due to other factors.  These reasons include rural origin or background, ethnic origin, condition of being a monolingual speaker of Guarani, poverty, insufficient literacy, handicaps, age, social class or other factors.[9]

In addition, there are no special measures for the compliance with Article 8 of the Convention that guarantees to women, on equal terms with men and without any discrimination, the opportunity to represent their Governments at the international level and to participate in the work of international organizations.

Specifically, with respect to the spreading of juridical knowledge and of the rights of women, the Paraguayan State should apply special measures for the monolingual portion of the population that speaks only Guarani, and which makes up the majority of those included in the sector of extreme poverty.  Likewise, special measures are needed to address the uneducated or illiterate groups, among which women comprise a great percentage.  It should be pointed out that after twenty years of the ratification of the CEDAW document, there still has been no publication in the Official Registry of an official version in the Guarani language, an official language in addition to Spanish, in which all laws are to be published.

VI.       Article 5

The traditional patterns of conduct that should be modified are exposed through domestic violence, an issue that is treated in Law No. 1.600/00.  While the law has facilitated the process by which women may report violence, the findings of the National Survey on Domestic and Inner-Family Violence, carried out by the Center for Documentation and Studies (CDE)[10] show that a need exists for more information and greater diffusion about what the State obligations are concerning this problem.

The traditional mandates of behavior are strongly transmitted through non-formal education by means of cultural products, such as songs, popular refrains and folklore, that enforce a negative image of women, including women’s own self image.  With this in mind, it is understandable that, being no objection against feminine participation in decision-making positions and there being a constitutional obligation that prohibits inequality between women and men, women who do accede to positions of power “only exceptionally become referents for their peers and for public opinion”[11]. This low feminine valuation should be modified through State policies.

Article 27 of the National Constitution establishes that the law must regulate publicity in order to avoid gender discrimination, but sexism still ideologically permeates the messages sent out through the mass media, with sexist language and publicity that devalue woman as a social actor.  The State does not implement control policies to enforce this law, a fact that is not disclosed in the governmental report.  Nevertheless, the television publicity campaign called “Equality for Everyone”, launched in October 2004 by the Secretariat for Women’s Affairs, constitutes an advance.  This campaign promotes the National Plan for Equal Opportunities between Women and Men 2003-2007.  The plan will be broadcasted by radio to the interior of the country in November, using the Guarani language.

Not enough has been done to promote responsible fatherhood as a social value that guarantees proper child-raising as a shared responsibility in society.  Although the governmental report mentions a proposed bill of responsible Parenthood, the study of said project has not prospered in the Legislative Branch.  Protected Maternity is guaranteed by the Labor Code, but this measure is generally not carried out completely as is treated in articles 4, 7 and 11.

The implementation of educational programs and publicity to eliminate practices based on the idea of the inferiority of women[12], should be included in the policymaking agenda of the National Plan of Equal Opportunities for Women 1997-2001 which is part of the Strategic Plan of Educational Reform published in 1996.  This plan is an instrument of negotiation of the Ministry of Education and Culture and of the PRIOME[13] –under the Secretariat of Women’s Affairs in agreement with this Ministry- that proposes to permeate State policies with gender perspective.  However, and although that within the framework of these legalities much was achieved toward the revision of the programmatic core of elementary and middle school educational textbooks, education continues to be sexist and discriminatory towards women.  High school and university level education has not even incorporated gender focal points.  The Paraguayan government lacks educational policies that guarantee a critical attitude towards traditional patterns of behavior for the modification of socio-cultural conduct, but the governmental report does not reflect this condition.

The Committee, in its previous observation, recommended that “the State strengthen and amplify its initiative to extend bilingual education to all citizens, particularly women, and combat all social, economical and cultural factors that are the cause of high rates of school drop-outs and illiteracy prevalent among women, as accorded in the provisions of Article 10 of the Convention”[14].  However, the government has not complied with this recommendation as for promoting bilingual education.  The elementary and middle school educational programs provide the study of Guarani as a second language, which hinders learning for the student population with Spanish as its mother tongue.  At the same time, the teaching of Spanish receives the same treatment in rural areas.   Although, both Spanish and Guarani are the official languages of the country, this second language is predominated by the first, since all official documents are written in Spanish, with the consequent discrimination towards the monolingual Guarani population, although this ascends to 53.2%, while the bilingual Guarani-Spanish population reaches 20.7% and the monolingual Spanish reaches 20,9%.[15] The government does not implement linguistic policies that help achieve competency in both languages.

One of the functions of the Vice Ministry of Culture is to take precautionary steps to insure that the educational curriculum of the schools operating under INDI (National Indigenous Institute) respect the diversity of the Indian Indigenous cultures, and yet the educational programs developed are elementary and do not contemplate the characteristics of the five linguistic families existing in Paraguay.   The Government lacks the mechanisms of control and follow-up of the percentage of school attendance of the Indian Indigenous population, where the rate of illiteracy of women reaches 97%.[16]

VII.     Article 6

The Penal Code currently in force establishes specific sanctions for the traffic and exploitation of the prostitution of women: "free sexual trade between adults and voluntary prostitution do not constitute penal felonies, whereas the trade of persons does constitute a penal offense" (Article 129), as do also "procuring or pimping" (Article 139) and "ruffianism" (Article 140).  However, no penal sanction is established for the party that participates in such activities as a "client" in situations of the commercial sexual exploitation of children and adolescents[17].

Even in the cases where specific sanctions exist for those responsible for the sexual commercialization of female minors, the only measure adopted by the Paraguayan State is to carry out roundups or police dragnets in which the victim of sexual exploitation is arrested and treated as a delinquent, while the real delinquents remain in liberty and are unpunished[18].

Recently the National Plan for the Eradication of the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Boys, Girls and Adolescents was established, as part of the social and labor policies and the policy related to Children and Adolescents[19], the most positive aspect of which has been that the elaboration of the same took place within a framework of a participative process.  Said process was propelled by key protagonists from the civil society, with the support of international organizations, but in practice does not count with the economic resources or the technical staff that are needed for adequate implementation.  In general, sexual traffic, the traffic of persons, the exploitation of the prostitution of women and forced prostitution constitute dark areas that the Paraguayan State has yet to investigate sufficiently.  Furthermore, in these obscure zones, the State has developed no specific services, nor has it devoted itself to enforcing current legislation.  Nothing can be done as regards suspicion of the existence of mafias for the traffic and trade of people, because these criminals are inaccessible and almost always remain unpunished by the judicial system, due to graft and their linkage with police personnel and other state agents.

Despite the fact that concrete denouncements have been made by the victims of such traffic, the Paraguayan judicial system has not been at all efficient in punishing the principal parties so accused or charged.  One of the chief obstacles is the existence of accomplices within the same public institutions that are involved, starting at the Department of Identifications of the National Police, the Ministry of the Interior, and the Ministry of Foreign Relations[20].  To be precise, currently Paraguay is considered to be one of the principal countries of origin for the women that are subject to traffic, according to the International Organization for Migration (OIM). The cases have become highly visible as a result of public accusations regarding adolescent women that are taken away under the lure of finding them a "good job"[21], which brings into focus the untreated situations of social inequalities and sharpened crisis.  In these situations, the scarce opportunities for adequate employment constitute an overwhelming economic factor as regards exposures to risks involving the vulnerability of young women, youth, adolescents and girls.

What is required is that the Paraguayan State prioritize in an effective manner the attention given to poverty and unemployment, since these are factors that increase opportunities for trafficking with persons, as pointed out in CEDAW General Recommendation Number 19 (section 14).  With respect to this same recommendation, sufficient information has not been generated in Paraguay about other forms of sexual exploitation, "such as sexual tourism, the hiring in developed countries of domestic workers from developing countries, and the marriage of women from developing countries with foreign men"[22].

Additional related situations that can act as risk factors or that increase vulnerability to the trafficking of persons include the following: discrimination based on gender, less pay for women in comparison to men for the performance of the same work, lack of information, and violence from an early age onwards that may be social, sexual or related to inner family relations.  The cultural practices related to unpaid child servitude (known by the term criadazgo) and child domestic labor should also be better studied in terms of comprising risk situations for the traffic and trade of persons and for forced prostitution.

In the Fifth Periodic Report presented to the Committee, the Paraguayan State called attention to the high indexes regarding the increase of poverty, and informed also with respect to rates for feminine unemployment and the trafficking of young girls, particularly in rural areas.  However, this report provides no information about state measures to respond to such situations, probably because no specific policies exist presently.  For example, the Second National Plan for Equal Opportunities for Women and Men 2003-2007 counts with no specific program for the prevention, protection or reinsertion into society of the victims of the trade or traffic of persons for purposes of sexual exploitation.

To combat such trafficking requires planned interventions that include consideration of the causes and processes associated with this phenomenon[23].  Such interventions cannot be isolated actions since they must simultaneously deal with victims, their families, their communities, the recruiters of young victims, the networks of traffickers, the solicitors and sexual exploiters, state officials and agents, and with society at large.

In 2004, there were two initiatives related to discussions on the subject of the traffic of women.  One opportunity for dialogue was organized by the Ministry of Foreign Relations, and a second event was carried out with the support of the Permanent Advisory Committee on Gender Equality, which reports to the Executive Board of the Municipality of Asuncion.  Both initiatives opened the way for discussion opportunities and a wide range of interchanges regarding experiences and other knowledge on this subject.  These initiatives served as well to provide for closer coordination between governmental, non-governmental and international sectors, as a high degree of continuity is required in order to bring the ideas into the concrete sphere through the design and implementation of holistic and effective policies.  In this sense, an inter-institutional work team has been operating since April, 2004 to carry out a project with international cooperative backing that is aimed at the implementation of measures for keener awareness, appropriate legislation and training.  This team at the present is also studying the elaboration of a National Plan to be executed by the Secretariat for Women (SMPR).  It is indeed fundamental that this type of project become reality, but what merits concern is the fact that treatment of the issue of the traffic of persons depends almost exclusively on external cooperation.  It should be pointed out that in general the projects lose continuity when external funds are not available.

Over the last year, Paraguay made progress as regards the ratification of international instruments such as the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of Children related to the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography, and the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and its Protocol for the Prevention, Suppression and Sanction of the Traffic of Persons, especially Women and Children (Palermo, 2000).

Another outstanding aspect to be mentioned is the official mission carried out in February, 2004 by the United Nations Relater on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography.  The resulting report on the problems that were encountered and the recommendations[24] that were given in this document indeed could serve as an important source of materials when defining policies.  With respect to the commercial sexual exploitation of children, it must be stressed that the Paraguayan State has been the object of adverse observations formulated by the Committee for the Rights of Children on reiterated occasions[25].

Finally, it must be pointed out that even though there has been a start to the opening of a public dialogue regarding the topic, important gaps or deficiencies still exist in legislative terms.  In addition, there is a lack of application of the existing measures, and there continue to be generalized difficulties as concerns access to justice.  Furthermore, there still are no concrete and integral policies directed towards the treatment of the problem, nor has priority been given to allocating adequate budgetary resources.  All of these factors have given rise to a state of dependency - chiefly the dependency upon international cooperation - for the execution of initiatives.  There is still little understanding on the topic from the part of the general public, and therefore it is most important that strategies be focused on the various fronts that make up the problem.  The policies must take into account such aspects as migration, poverty, employment, security, access to justice, childhood and gender.

VIII.    Article 7

As indicated in the Third and Fourth Combined Periodic Reports, Paraguay has constitutional provisions, promulgated in 1992, which are aimed at providing compliance to the provisions of CEDAW Article 7.  It is explicitly stated that positive actions intended to overcome unfair inequalities shall not be considered to be discriminatory, but rather instead of an equalizing nature (Article 46), and the promotion of the access to women to hold public office and perform public functions is established as an obligation of the State (Article 117).  As regards electoral to legislation, these laws include articles that prohibit discrimination in political and electoral advertising, and establish the elaboration of poll lists that are differentiated according to sex.  In 1996, a minimum quota of participation by women within the configuration of internal electoral slates presented in partisan elections was set, and a quota of 20% was put into effect.  The quota of participation was structured in an alternating manner, and is to be applied in such a way as to include at least one female candidate for each five slots within the slates.

The aforementioned quota is the only positive action measure put into effect by the Paraguayan State to improve the access by women to positions of political power.  (In this context, please refer to the comments included in the discussion of Article 4).  However, it soon became apparent that said measure is insufficient to guarantee the fulfillment of Article 7 of the Convention.  Furthermore, this measure currently represents an obstacle towards producing a sustained increase of the access of women to elective offices at a decision-making level, and to generate equality in this field.  This situation is due to the following factors:  a) As the quota system is only applied in cases of partisan primaries, the percentage of women represented in the electoral slates that political parties present for national or municipal elections does not reach even 20 per cent.  b) Due to the system of alternating candidates that has been established, the few women candidates usually occupy slots that have lesser changes of eligibility.  c) The effect of the measure is practically null when the electoral positions or seats being contested are few in number.[26] d)  Eight years since this norm has been legally in effect, the scanty percentage set as obligatory for all political parties is managed by such institutions as a top ceiling for feminine candidacies.  This situation worsens in the political parties with better electoral possibilities, as often the fifth positions in the slates are considered to be “slots for women”, signifying in this manner that women can aspire to no more than finding a place in one of these slots.  e) The majority of the parties include quotas in their By-laws, and some political parties have even improved the disposition in order to harmonize with the spirit of this type of positive actions.  Thusly, this affirmative action measure no longer represents a real plus benefit towards advancement in this regard.

Upon comparing the total electoral results during the last three general elections held in Paraguay (1993, 1998, and 2003), one may see that there has been a slight increase of around two to three per cent as regards women elected to office, in each period of time.  At this rate, if it could be sustained, only in the year 2063 would we be arriving at parity as regards election results, after twelve additional elections.[27]  This data shows the magnitude of the inefficiency of such a measure as that of minimum quota, when it is adopted merely to squelch the increased demands for greater access to decision-making positions which are made by women members of diverse social organizations and political parties.  The data ratifies the need for quotas to guarantee electoral results and not simply to refer to participation in the candidacies.

Currently, Paraguay counts with scanty participation of women in the National Congress, as only 10.4% of Congressional seats were won by women.  This figure is lower than the average registered elsewhere in the region.  In 2003, for the first time in Paraguayan history a woman Governor was elected to head one of the seventeen Departments, and 14.1% of the Departmental Council seats were occupied by women.  As regards the composition of Municipal Councils, women make up 17.7% of the elected officials, whereas only 5% of the municipal mayors are women.

Even though there are some projects aimed towards improvement of the lack of representation in elective positions, the concrete fact is that the Paraguayan State counts with no adequate policies to accelerate the achievement of real equality.  In this context, it should be mentioned that these projects are backed by the women’s movement and certain state agencies that have even proposed that women candidates integrate electoral slates with a participation level of fifty percent of the candidacies.  With notable exceptions, the national authorities have not indicated favorable political willingness as regards support for needed legislative change.

Given this panorama, even less can be said about there being any consistent efforts aimed at facing other obstacles that constitute barriers to the equitable entry of women into the mainstream of political and public spheres.  These barriers include poverty, the hardships and lacks of rural areas, and the discrimination suffered by monolingual speakers of the Guarani language[28].  In this respect, it must be highlighted that not only women but also men are the object of discrimination if they only speak Guarani.  Finally, discrimination against indigenous peoples, whether men or women, must be noted.

A matter of flagrant discrimination for the access of women to elected public office is the lack of guarantees and protection for situations of maternity.  This topic was cited in the Fifth Periodic Report in the section devoted to Article 1 of the Convention.  A woman City Council member for Asuncion demanded her right to hold office while pregnant, a right that was denied her by the City Board of this capital city.  The Board maintained that the protections afforded by the Labor Code were not extendible to women occupying elected positions of political power.  This is an antecedent that undoubtedly will discourage any women of reproductive age and with the desire to bear children to seek nomination in electoral processes.

The Paraguayan State, in its Fifth Periodic Report, accused the women’s social movement for not having supported feminine candidacies in a concrete manner during the elections held during the time span covered by the present report.  However, this posture totally fails to acknowledge the framework of polit