10/09/09

The New Statesman wrongly informs about domestic violence in Venezuela

The New Statesman published last week a piece by Amy Stillman, a freelance journalist, which heavily criticized the Venezuelan justice system in dealing with domestic violence.

Stillman’s piece, titled “Chavez is failing women”, mainly focused on the cases of Alexandra Hidalgo and Linda Loaiza.

The Venezuelan Ambassador in London, Samuel Moncada, requested a reply from The New Statesman, and Nathalie Vivas, Second Secretary of the Embassy, sent a letter where she explained many of the achievements of the Bolivarian Revolution in terms of gender equality and women’s policies in Venezuela.

An edited edition of the letter came out in the New Statesman issue of 14 September 2009.

This is the letter sent by Vivas to The New Statesman:

Editor of the New Statesman:

In response to your article “Chavez is failing women”: Had Amy Stillman bothered to write a balanced piece on the situation of domestic violence in Venezuela she would have included the following facts:

First, since the “Law on the Right of Women to a Life Free of Violence” was passed in 2007, the number of women reporting violence has tripled, amounting to more than 101,500 official complaints within the last two years. This is thanks to the fact that women today are aware that there is a law that guarantees their rights and that there are special institutions equipped to help them.

Second, Venezuela now has 60 prosecution offices specialised in gender violence and 10 more are planned for this year.

Third, the Prosecutor’s Office has organised a series of workshops to train personnel to appropriately deal with gender violence.

Fourth, the National Women’s Institute has launched a campaign to educate the public about domestic violence and initiated projects to incorporate men into the struggle against domestic violence.

The advances made are reason why Venezuela hosted this year’s UN Conference on Gender Violence, whose officials have praised Venezuela as “one of the most advanced countries in Latin America in the struggle to eradicate violence against women”.

No doubt, there is still more to do in terms of women’s empowerment, like in every other Latin American country and many other countries in the world. In fact, WHO statistics show that in various industrialised nations up to 70 % of female murder victims were killed by their partners. I am aware that journalists like to search for headlines, and bad news sells more than good news. However, your one-sided and misleading article, reporting on all that has not yet been achieved, without drawing attention to any of the accomplishments made, is not only a threat to serious journalism, but it is also highly distorting and does an injustice to all those women who have stood up against their perpetrators and have received justice thanks to the measures put in place by this government within the last years.

Yours faithfully,

Nathalie Vivas

Second Secretary at the Venezuelan Embassy in London