Honduras to Conduct First Survey on Violence Against Women. The survey aims to generate statistical data to inform violence prevention programming.
Honduras prepares to launch the first specialized survey on violence against women and girls with support from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the United States Agency for Development (USAID), HRN reported Thursday.
The survey will allow the Honduran authorities to gather data on the acts of violence that affect women, the obstacles they face when requesting help, the responses of the justice system and social and health services available to them, according to a UNDP statement.
Cooperation Agreement
The National Institute of Statistics (INE) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) signed a cooperation agreement that includes efforts to strengthen the capacities of INE in terms of generation and access to information.
For the first time in Honduras, the “Specialized National Survey on Violence Against Women and Girls 15 years of age and older” will be carried out. To assist with the process, the website’s information system will also be improved to facilitate accessible, timely and reliable statistical access by the population.
Survey on Violence Against Women
The survey aims to expand and generate statistical data that will be utilized to inform violence prevention programming by decision makers, academia and civil society. The tool seeks to identify acts of physical, psychological, sexual and patrimonial violence in both the public and private spheres.
In the same way, the sociodemographic profile of household members associated with the various situations of violence will be investigated, according to a statement by UNDP.
The information obtained in this survey will serve to contextualize and guide the tasks of intervention in situations of violence. It will also assist with the design of gender-conscious public policies and inform strategies to better support victims, generate awareness and create protection mechanisms.
The results of this survey will be presented early next year, reports UNDP.
Constructing Informed Public Policies
“There cannot be full democracy or justice in contexts of violence. Violence against girls and women is one of the scourges of Honduras. In the government of President Xiomara Castro we work with statistical evidence. The survey that we plan to conduct and analyze will be part of our contribution to the construction of public policies against violence against women.”
Eugenio Sosa, Director of INE.
The director of the National Institute of Statistics (INE) of Honduras, Eugenio Sosa, said that the country requires “disaggregated, timely and reliable data on the situation of women.”
Sosa noted that the survey will make it possible to measure the magnitude and dimensions of the problem, establish baseline parameters, identify high-risk groups, focus interventions, prevention activities, monitor changes over time, and assess the effectiveness of interventions.
The survey will also help the Central American country learn about the situation of violence suffered by women, both in the public and private sectors.
“This first survey is significant because of the topic it addresses and the possibilities of its use that will feed into decision-making and research,”
Richard Barathe, UNDP.
The survey will be applied to 7,200 households in the 18 departments of the country and its results will be presented at the beginning of 2023.
The Role of Honduran Women in Data Collection
The survey will be carried out by a group of 52 women who have been trained on issues of gender, violence, interview techniques, handling of paper and digital questionnaires, reported HRN.
Of the total number of women trained, 39 will be in charge of collecting the data and 13 will work as supervisors, all of whom received a certificate of recognition on Thursday after completing a training day.
INE Website
UNDP will also support Honduras to improve and develop the information system of the INE website, allowing the population to access timely and reliable statistics.
Honduras to Conduct First Survey on Violence Against Women
Next week, data collection begins. The survey will be carried out at the national level starting in the second week of November and will serve to discover various dimensions that affect women and the links to security issues and violence prevention.
“We must measure the magnitude and dimensions of the problem, establish baseline parameters, identify high-risk groups, focus interventions and prevention activities where they are most needed, and monitor changes over time while assessing the effectiveness of the interventions,”
Eugenio Sosa, Director of INE.
Soledad Quartucci | Latina Republic
Dr. Soledad Quartucci is the founder and CEO of Latina Republic, a 501(C)3 California-based nonprofit organization. Latina Republic is committed to improving the diversity and professional development of storytellers in the media industry as representation matters and affects the stories we tell. Latina Republic makes space for and empowers unheard voices and trains the next generation of leaders in the U.S.
