BACK	RIGHTS-WOMEN: Latin American Laws on Domestic Violence

Draft laws are also being studied in two other nations, says a new study released by the Santiago-based UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLA).

In the run-up to the ''World Day for Eradication of Violence Against Women'' Tuesday, a gathering of more than 100 delegates from 41 countries in the region, organised by ECLA, has highlighted the need for greater preventive efforts and more in- depth sanctions for offenders.

We must ''guarantee fair treatment of victims and observance of laws on violence against women and children,'' states the 'Santiago Consensus', released after the seventh Conference on the Integration of Women into Economic and Social Development, wound up here.

The ECLA study points out that the first law against domestic violence in Latin America was passed in Puerto Rico in 1989. Since then, and ''mainly in the past three years,'' 14 other nations have approved similar legislation.

''Violence against women is no longer a private matter in Latin America and the Caribbean,'' says ECLA, which adds that the laws provide tools for protecting victims and encouraging people to report incidents.

In the region, Argentina, the Bahamas, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Puerto Rico and Uruguay have laws on domestic violence, while a draft law to reform Venezuela's penal code is being studied, and a national plan is being debated in Paraguay.

Since its declaration last decade, 'World Non-Violence against Women Day' has taken on increasing relevance. Domestic violence was one of the 12 top priority areas included in the final declaration adopted by the 1995 UN Women's Conference in Beijing.

A document drafted for the seventh Conference on the Integration of Women into Economic and Social Development states that ''the obstacles faced by women with respect to domestic violence continue to arise, in broad sectors, from ignorance of their rights and the mechanisms established by law.''

But the problem is still mainly due to the widespread ''acceptance of violence as an integral part of the exercise of authority in the family,'' it adds.

The ECLA study on legislation on domestic violence in the region stresses that while the laws vary in content, they all entail ''a transformation in the concept of family.''

By encompassing common-law marriages, children born out of wedlock and former partners, laws on domestic violence have expanded the definition of domestic violence in the region. And in certain cases, the laws provide a foundation ''for determining and demanding state responsibility.''

The majority of the laws define domestic violence as ''physical or psychological mistreatment or aggression by a member of the family group.'' But sexual aggression against women is also explicitly included in the Puerto Rican and Ecuadoran legislation.

The Puerto Rican law was the first to define intramarital violence, a major achievement ''because it breaks with the ageold tradition that women are the property of their husbands,'' says ECLA.

Although ECLA says it is still early to evaluate the efficaciousness of the laws, it adds that one of the clearest effects has been an increase in reports on domestic violence, which have begun to pull the issue from the private to the public sphere. But difficulties in enforcing the laws were also found.

In Puerto Rico, one of the countries - along with Chile and Mexico - on which the ECLA study especially concentrated, police are reluctant to act, and one of the overlying aims of the legal system is to avoid overcrowding the prisons. And in Chile, cases take far too long to process, the report adds. (END/IPS/tra-so/lac/dg/sw/97)