Developing international public policy solutions to eradicate violence against women internationally.

1. WORLDWIDE OBSERVATORY ON
VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
WOVFEM
A SEARCH FOR PUBLIC POLICY SOLUTIONS FOR AN
UNACCEPTABLE STATUS QUO

2. WOVFEM
I. Who Advocates?
The presenter, James R. Sutton, the offspring of an 18 year old Mexican widow, whose middle aged
husband committed suicide when he was one year old. In the ensuing years he witnessed first-hand the
struggles and sacrifices she endured merely to survive. This event has had life-long consequences.
After 20 year service as a law enforcement officer, FBI agent, and Intelligence Analyst at a local, state,
and federal level, Mr. Sutton received a Masters of Arts from the University of Chicago, UIC, on Public
Policy Analysis in 2000. For the past 16 years all his research has focused on violence against women,
some of it conducted during assignments to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Latin America.
Being fully bilingual (Spanish/English), with some familiarity with Italian, and Russian, allowed him to
document abuse of women and vulnerable communities world-wide. Relying on significant research and
an extensive network of professional associates, Mr. Sutton is in the process of developing the Worldwide
Observatory of Violence against Females (WOvFEM).

3. WOVFEM
II. Why the Initiative?
A worldwide survey disclosed an epidemic of violence against women in virtually every country. It ranges
from sexual mutilation not only in Africa, the Middle East, Far East, but North America as well. It also
includes widespread homicides against women (Femicides) in Latin America, which has one of the
highest incidence of these attacks in the world. Child marriages in India and Pakistan.
While there are hundreds of organizations focused on this issue, there seems to be a lack of coordination
at a world-wide level, notwithstanding the exceptional efforts of the United Nations , The European
Women’s Lobby (EWL) , Amnesty International Violence against Women initiative and other regional,
country, and city based Non-Governmental Organizations.

4. The Observatory’s goal is:
 To objectively document violence against women wherever
identified
 To develop a Common Operating Picture (COP) that provides
complete and integrated view, which requires compilation,
fusion, and analysis of world-wide trends
WOVFEM

5.  To provide the best and most objective analysis devoid of
any partisan, religious, political, ethnic, subjective personal
agenda, or bias
 To ensure the resulting evidence meets the standards of
legal evidence as defined by international judicial
organizations
 To give the analysis as wide distribution as possible
WOVFEM

6. The high levels of violence and abuse of women, children, and the handicapped in
Latin America’s Northern Triangle (Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras) have three
fundamental causes:
I. The war on drugs
II. The counter-narcotics strategy in the region
III. An immigration policy based on rejection and return.
All three are fundamentally anchored on dogmatic, political and ideological grounds
where a logical discourse is derailed by narrow partisanship and personal animus.
A reasoned and logical solution is possible but rarely achieved.
WOVFEM
The Basic Premises

7. Some of the obstacles to achieve a solution:
 The impact of drug trafficking on historic social, familial, and personal networks
and the counter narcotics strategy in the Region (War on Drugs)
 At a micro level success of this “War” cannot be proved
 The transformation of ideological groups into criminal actors facilitated, in part, by
their access to “wartime structures and tactics,” including intelligence and
smuggling routes
 Social, political, economic, and demographic factors preclude protection of
vulnerable cohorts
 US Border Screening and Returns of Central Americans to carries risk of serious
harm, specially for minors
WOVFEM

8. Women, children, and the
handicapped are often in great
danger in the place where they
should be safest: within their
families. For many, ‘home’ is where
they face a regime of terror and
violence at the hands of somebody
close to them – somebody they
should be able to trust. Those
victimized suffer physically and
psychologically.
WOVFEM

9. Several complex and interconnected
institutional, social and cultural factors
have kept women, children, and the
handicapped particularly vulnerable to
the violence directed at them, all
manifestations of historically unequal
power relations between men, women
and the handicapped
WOVFEM

10. While abuse of women and handicapped is
a serious problem. The most prevalent and
harmful in the long term is child abuse. Forty
million children younger than 15 are victims
of violence, abuse, and neglect in Latin
America and the Caribbean, according to a
2006 UNICEF report. Much of this violence
takes place in the home, but Gallup surveys
in the region show most adults who know of
a child who was beaten or physically
mistreated by a family member, short of a
fatality, fail to report the incident
WOVFEM

11. Existential challenges faced by all living in
the region:
• Generalized Corruption
• Official Impunity
• Government/Institutional Inefficiency
• Extensive Extortion
• Social impotence/acceptance of
prevailing conditions
Violence and Prevailing Conditions in the Region
Violence is often the result economic need, hunger, ignorance, and poverty.
These are the conditions that motivate some in the population to rely on
aggressiveness and crime to escape their frustration

12. Child abuse is particularly pernicious and egregious because of its life-long
consequences.
 It impairs early brain development, metabolic and immune system function,
leading to chronic health problems
 Abused children are at increased risk for a wide range of physical health
conditions including obesity, heart disease, and cancer, as well as
psychiatric conditions such as depression, suicide, drug and alcohol abuse,
high-risk behaviors and violence
WOVFEM

13. Child abuse
 Susceptibility to developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)--a severe and
debilitating stress-related psychiatric disorder--after experiencing other types of trauma
later in life
 Child abuse leaves physical and emotional consequences in the form of epigenetic
marks on a child's genes. Although these epigenetic marks do not cause mutations in the
DNA itself, the chemical modifications-including DNA methylation-change gene
expression by silencing (or activating) genes. This can alter fundamental biological
processes and adversely affect health outcomes throughout life
 My hypothesis is that many of these children end up as members of the region’s hyper-
violent gangs
WOVFEM

14. There four types of stress psychologists typically differentiate between how long the
periods last
 Physical
 Emotional
 Traumatic
 Acute vs. Chronic
WOVFEM
Consider the malignant effects of cortisol on human health and well-
being

15. WOVFEM
The autonomic nervous system (ANS) is a vast network of nerves
reaching out from the spinal cord, directly affecting every organ in the
body. It has two branches, the sympathetic and the parasympathetic,
which have opposite effects. The sympathetic ANS helps us deal with
stressful situations by initiating a ‘fight or flight’ reaction. After the
danger has passed, the parasympathetic ANS takes over, decreasing
heartbeat and relaxing blood vessels.

16. While violence against handicapped persons are particularly abhorrent and outrageous,
there are no reliable statistics on the Northern Triangle on this problem
 Anecdotal data indicates most abuse involves sexual abuse of females, whether physically or mentally
handicapped
 Physical abuse of handicapped males, including sexual abuse of minors is a close second
 Handicapped people are pushed to the margins of society while all they want is to live a life with a degree
of dignity. Some described their condition as living in a silent hell
 Serious neglect of the handicapped, often resulting in fatal outcomes is widespread but under-reported
throughout the region
 Elderly abuse is present but not as severe as North America:
(a) Demographic = high mortality rate, not many elderly,
(b) Cultural = abuse of elderly not culturally condoned.
WOVFEM
Violence against Handicapped Persons

17. WOVFEM
The delegation found that interrelated factors
contributed to this dramatic increase in migration
and that a “perfect storm.” Push factors include
the absence of economic opportunity, the lack of
access to education generally, the resulting
inability for individuals to support themselves and
their families in their home countries/local
communities. The desire to reunify with family in
the United States.
Note the gang tattoos on the doll’s
forehead, indoctrination starts early in
life

18. WOVFEM
Expedited Removal

19. WOVFEM
Expedited Removal
The current process is based more on political,
and ideological considerations than legal or
human rights.

20. WOVFEM
Expedited Removal

21. One of the challenges I want to resolve with the observatory is the limited
availability standardized methodology to measure and accurately quantify the
different forms of abuse in the region.
Currently -- while not impossible -- it is difficult to develop validated comparable
statistics in the Northern Triangle. Anecdotal surveys indicate that women, children,
and handicapped abuse is on the rise but is rarely reported in venues that would
lead to positive changes in managing this scourge.
WOVFEM
Objective/Strategy
Public Policy changes are near impossible without standardized and
validated quantitative analysis

22. WORLDWIDE OBSERVATORY ON VIOLENCE
AGAINST WOMEN
WOvFEM
Protecting Mother Earth is part of the
agenda