On International Human Rights Day 2006, INSTRAW commemorates the conclusion of the 16th annual 16 Days of Activism Campaign with a look at some of the achievements we have made over the last 16 years in the struggle to end violence against women in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Over the last 16 years, a remarkable amount of progress has been made in the struggle to address violence against women, led primarily by international and national women’s organizations and the health sector. During the 1990s, a series of international conferences, including the World Conference on Human Rights (Vienna, 1992), the International Conference on Population and Development (Cairo, 1994) and the Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing, 1995), established women’s rights as human rights and placed the issue of violence against women resolutely on the international agenda. In Latin America and the Caribbean, the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women (Convention of Belém do Pará, 1994), which has been ratified by 32 countries in the region, establishes a framework for efforts to eliminate violence against women.