Emerging debates in Latin America

Violencia política y acoso político hacia las mujeres describes behaviors that specifically target women as women to leave politics by pressuring them to step down as candidates or resign a particular political office. In Latin America, this concept made its first concrete appearance in Bolivia in 2000, when local councilwomen convened at a seminar at the Chamber of Deputies to discuss reports regarding harassment and violence against women in rural municipalities. Events that ensued from this meeting played a crucial role across the region in naming this phenomenon, defining its contours in terms of the types of acts constituting political violence and harassment, and privileging legal reform as the primary strategy for combating this growing problem.

The Association of Local Councilwomen of Bolivia (Acobol) has been the crucial actor in this process. Soon after their first meeting, Acobol gained a commitment in 2001 on the part of Congress to work on legislation to address the issue. A bill was eventually presented during the 2005-2006 congressional term, as a legislative initiative of civil society joining local elected women with female parliamentarians and civil society groups (^{iKnowPolitics, 2007, p. 16}). To aid in this work, Acobol developed a reporting process to track cases via a statistical information system. By 2012, the group had assembled more than 4000 claims from elected women, mainly in rural areas with indigenous populations, testifying to the role of harassment and violence in negatively affecting their political work (^{Observatorio de Género, 2012, p. 1}). The law remained controversial -and indeed, was opposed by some indigenous women who argued that it was a law against men (and, specifically, their sons) (^{Cabezas Fernández, 2014})- but it was approved in Congress in 2012 after the high-profile murder of local councilwoman Juana Quispe.

The resulting reform, Law 243 against Political Harassment and Violence against Women,¹ largely reflects the inductive work of Acobol and other female politicians and activists to name this phenomenon and identify its various manifestations. Law 243 protects female candidates, elected officials, appointees, and those exercising political functions who confront efforts to prevent their presence in decision-making positions for reasons of gender. The law defines "political harassment" as "acts of pressure, persecution, molestation, or threats" and "political violence" as "acts and/or threats of physical, psychological, or sexual violence", aimed at shortening, suspending, impeding, or restricting the exercise of a woman's political position, or inducing a woman, against her will, to commit an act or fail to do something related to her political mandate. Article 8 enumerates a long list of behaviors constituting harassment and violence against women in the political realm. Interestingly, while the legislation mentions physical and sexual acts, all of the examples given in this article fall under the heading of psychological violence, presumably because there may be less consensus that these actions constitute acts of "violence."

The behaviors enumerated in Article 8 include imposing, due to gender stereotypes, tasks unrelated to the job itself;² giving women erroneous or imprecise information leading to the inadequate exercise of their functions; preventing appointed or elected women from attending sessions or other activities involving decision-making; providing false or incomplete information to electoral authorities regarding the identity or sex of candidates;³ impeding or restricting a woman's re-nomination or election when she uses her office correctly; restricting a woman's ability to speak in sessions, committees, or other meetings inherent in her job; restricting or impeding women from assuming office who have been elected through the procedures of indigenous or Afro-Bolivian groups; imposing unjustified sanctions that restrict a woman's exercise of her political rights; applying illegal economic sanctions or withholding women's salaries; divulging personal and private information to force women to resign or request a leave from their positions; spreading false information with the objective of discrediting a woman's leadership and obtaining her resignation or leave of her position; forcing women to resign their positions; and obligating elected women -through force or intimidation- to sign documents or take decisions against their will.

The law recognizes that such acts can be committed by one or more people, directly or through third parties, against female candidates and public officials as well as members of their families. Violations can be denounced by the victim, her relatives, or any other person, in verbal or written form. Penalties include two to five years of prison for political harassment, three to eight years for physical or psychological violence, and the prevailing sanction for sexual assault according to the criminal code. Aggravating factors that may increase these penalties include: 1) acts committed against a pregnant woman, someone older than 60, with limited education, or with a disability; 2) acts committed by a person in a leadership position in a political party, a citizen movement, or the public service, or if the person has recommitted acts of political harassment or violence against women; and 3) acts committed by two or more people. Parties responsible for implementing this law comprise the ministry of justice, the electoral authorities, and leaders at different levels of government.

Prior to this path-breaking reform, debates in Bolivia already played a role in initiating broader discussions across the region. In 2007, soon after the legislative initiative was presented, the 10^th Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean signed the Quito Consensus acknowledging the issue on a broader scale for the first time. Attendees agreed as a group to move to "adopt legislative measures and institutional reforms to prevent, sanction, and eradicate political and administrative harassment against women who achieve decision-making positions through election or appointment, both at the national and local levels, as well as in political parties and movements",⁴ A project funded by the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation and Development with the support of un Women was subsequently carried out in four countries -Costa Rica, El Salvador, Ecuador and Bolivia- with the goal of enriching the theoretical discussion on this particular theme through empirical case studies. The result of this inductive work has been to identify additional behaviors constituting political harassment and violence against women, like deliberating failing to notify women of the day, place, and time of political meetings; hiding or not delivering correspondence; denying resources necessary to be an effective representative; and publicly disrespecting, ridiculing, and disqualifying the proposals made by women (^{Herrera, Arias and García, 2011}).

In more recent years, female deputies and senators in a growing number of countries have proposed bills on the issue. In 2011, at the same time that the proposal was being considered in Bolivia, a bill on political harassment and violence was presented in Ecuador by Lourdes Tibán Gualá, a female member of the National Assembly. The bill alluded to various constitutional articles -state commitments to guarantee real equality, citizens' right to a life free of violence, principles of non-discrimination- and made note of some of the challenges that women face when contemplating running for office, like fewer economic resources and traditional gender roles, which together prevent women from becoming candidates. Despite these elements, this bill was otherwise very similar to the Bolivian bill in using the terms harassment and violence, classifying acts in terms of physical and psychological violence (although also adding "verbal violence"), and introducing aggravating factors like the pregnancy or minority status of targets and leadership roles of perpetrators. The bill was supported by nine other members of Congress, but the proposal was archived when it was deemed to be redundant with a proposal to reform the penal code recognizing the crime of political harassment, albeit without a gender dimension.⁵

A similar proposal found greater, albeit only partial, success in Mexico, where senator Lucero Saldaña presented a bill to this effect in November 2012. The bill explicitly referenced the Bolivian law on political harassment and violence against women, with many phrases taken directly from the original text. The Mexican proposal differed primarily in seeking to reform existing legislation -in this case, the Law on Women's Access to a Life Free from Violence and the Federal Electoral Code- rather than proposing a free-standing bill. The language and aims were otherwise the same, however: to criminalize acts of physical, psychological and sexual violence, perpetrated against one or more women seeking to impede their access to or carry out a position of political representation. The bill was approved by a unanimous vote in the Senate in March 2013, but was ultimately not taken up in the Chamber of Deputies. The issue nonetheless remained on the political agenda, with various events organized in 2014 on the topic, engaging the electoral authorities, the federal women's institute, and leaders and representatives from the various political parties. In April 2015, in the run-up to the June elections, the Senate issued an opinion calling on the National Electoral Institute, as well as the National Council on Preventing and Eliminating Discrimination, to intervene to respond to the rising number of cases of political violence against women being reported to the local electoral tribunals. The latter issued an urgent appeal to the political parties and distributed a guide for elections without discrimination.⁶

Bills have also been proposed elsewhere in the region. In February 2013, Verónika Fanny Mendoza Frisch, a female member of the National Congress in Peru, introduced a bill to tackle political harassment against women. Although the bill is, again, very similar to the Bolivian law, the word "violence" does not appear -avoided, according to sources,⁷ due to its association with the history of armed conflict in Peru. Co-sponsored by seven other members of Congress, the bill focuses on violations and threats to the physical, sexual and psychological integrity of women in politics as well as their families. It lists many of the same acts previously mentioned, but adds behaviors like cursing and calling meetings at hours inadequate for personal security -the latter being an issue that women, more often than men, may find particularly difficult to navigate. In March 2015, the bill passed the committee stage and was put on the National Assembly agenda, but it has not yet been debated. The president of the national elections authority joined calls for this reform, noting that in the 2015 elections at least 40 per cent of female candidates had been victims of harassment.⁸

In March 2013, a bill sponsored by Pilar Porras Zúñiga, a Costa Rican female deputy, sought as well to prevent and eradicate political harassment and/or violence against women. This initiative calls attention to the Bolivian example, although it also references discussions in Ecuador. The bill focuses, again, on physical, sexual and psychological forms of violence and contains a word-for-word repetition of the Bolivian definition of harassment. Verbal violence, similar to the text in Ecuador, is listed later in the bill. The aggravating factors listed are nearly identical, albeit with no mention of ethnic minorities or lack of education. A new element is the bill's consideration of the impact of psychological violence, which is not restricted to the fact that women leave office but also recognizes that -as a result- they may suffer depression, isolation, low self-esteem, and even suicide. The bill also specifies a novel punishment, which is that being convicted of such acts would cause a person to lose an elected or appointed positions, if they hold one, and to be disqualified from running for public office in the future.

These bills testify to clear diffusion -at least among some countries in the region- of initiatives to criminalize political harassment and violence against women. These developments, in turn, have inspired growing interest in the phenomenon among academics in Latin America. A review of this literature reveals that the vast majority of studies stick closely to the definitions given in the Bolivian law, adding new examples but staying within the framework of physical, sexual and psychological manifestations. As a result, the "psychological" category, in particular, has grown to encompass a massive array of different behaviors that, theoretically, might be better described as distinct forms of violence. A few contributions move in this direction, mentioning -but not necessarily elaborating on- terms like "symbolic" or "economic" violence (^{Cerva Cerna, 2014}; ^{Lamas and Azuela Maite, 2009}; ^{Machicao Barbieri, 2004}; ^{Medina Espino, 2013}).

A second notable trend within this body of research is a tendency to have to explain to participants what political harassment and violence is -after which many respond by giving a wide range of examples emerging from their own experiences (^{Herrera, Arias and García, 2011}; ^{Incer Brenes, 2014}; ^{Machicao Barbieri, 2004}). This exercise has the effect of reinforcing existing classification schemes, at the same time that these prior categories need to be "stretched" in order to accommodate a more diverse group of acts. Consequently, an opportunity is missed to draw on this rich qualitative data to "speak back" to and further elaborate prevailing frameworks via additional inductive analysis, developing a more nuanced and multifaceted conception of this phenomenon. Remaining close to the example of the Bolivian legislation, moreover, may lead academics and practitioners to over-emphasize legal reform as the primary answer, overlooking the many other potential strategies that might be pursued alongside -or in lieu of- legislation.

Definitions and concepts

Alongside discussions in Latin America, activists working on the ground in other regions have identified a strikingly similar set of practices which they label "violence against women in politics". A report by South Asia Partnership International (2006), for instance, talks about acts perpetrated to hinder, punish or deprive women of their right to participate in politics. They identify physical acts like beating, pushing, molestation, sexual abuse, rape, kidnapping and murder. They also list types of psychological violence, like threats, harassment, verbal abuse, coercion, character assassination and threats against family members. Strikingly, the group frames violence against women in politics as a specifically South Asian problem, with no references to trends elsewhere.

Budding awareness of the cross-regional nature of this problem inspired the International Knowledge Network on Women in Politics to organize an on-line discussion on the issue in 2007 to engage politicians and activists from multiple regions. This exercise yielded further examples, including domestic violence, media harassment, defamation and slander, economic control, and targeting of relatives and supporters (^{iKnowPolitics, 2007}). These discussions, however, much like those in Latin America, have proceeded with little reference to academic research on related phenomena, making it unclear how violence against women in politics is similar or different to seemingly associated concepts like political and electoral violence and violence against women. Drawing in this academic work not only helps to delineate the boundaries of this new concept, but also provides insights into why such violence occurs -and thus the broader meaning behind these acts for women, politics, and society.

Towards a revised framework

Debates in Latin America, as outlined above, have revolved around two categories of violence, physical and psychological, with occasional mention of sexual and verbal violence. These discussions, however, are rarely informed by academic research, at the same time that greater awareness of this concept has led to a proliferation of examples included under each category. Placing these developments in dialogue with the incipient global evidence -assembled using print and on-line news stories, NGO reports, academic research and original interviews- reveals striking continuities in these behaviors across regions, attesting to the widespread nature of this phenomenon. These patterns suggest that further work on concept formation might not only enhance academic analyses of violence against women in politics, but could also inform how activists understand the issue, better capturing the full range of behaviors seeking to drive women from politics in Latin America and beyond.

Integrating both feminist and non-feminist research on violence, together with the global data, we propose an expanded definition of violence against women in politics that 1) collapses physical and sexual forms of violence into a single category of physical violence and 2) divides the unwieldy existing category of psychological violence to distinguish between psychological, economic, and symbolic violence. This schema recognizes, however, that the boundaries between types are somewhat porous, with specific behaviors potentially falling into several categories. At the same time, multiple forms of violence may be perpetrated simultaneously or in an escalating fashion. These overlaps, we suggest, strengthen the case for connecting these various acts under a single umbrella concept. Emphasizing continuities across different manifestations of violence against women in politics, moreover, acknowledges that distinct cultures may provide different "tools" for disciplining women, giving meaning to particular actions, as well as conditioning the degree to which such behaviors are normalized.⁹

Viewed globally, two trends emerge across these incidents of violence, further linking the types together and offering deeper appreciation of the perceived costs to women in pursuing a political career. First, women's sexuality is a potent symbol. Threats of rape tap into beliefs that women are vulnerable to -and can be punished through- acts of sexual assault. Questions about their sexuality morality are not unusual, with female politicians facing "accusations of being a prostitute, a lesbian, or otherwise sinful and/or sexually deviant" (^{Bardall, 2013, p. 3}), including having extramarital affairs -charges that can destroy them personally and politically. Second, distinct from "regular" political violence committed by political opponents, acts against women in politics, similar to violence against women in general, may originate from varied corners. Evidence reveals that aggression may spring from society, like a woman's family, friends and community or religious leaders, as well as the media; the political sector, including colleagues and leaders from opposing parties as well as a woman's own party, and extending in some cases to civil servants and members of the executive branch; and state actors like security forces and the police (^{SAP International, 2006}).

Concepts and practical solutions

Concept formation matters because it can restrict or expand how a particular problem is understood, in turn shaping the scope of action for developing solutions. Theorizing physical and psychological forms of violence, campaigns in Latin America have largely focused on legislation as the primary answer to the rising problem of violence against women in politics. Our expanded conceptualization -incorporating the four dimensions of physical, psychological, economic, and symbolic violence- suggests that legislative initiatives may not suffice to realize commitments to recognize, incorporate, and empower women as political actors. Rather, multiple strategies pursued simultaneously by state and civil society actors may be required in order to address these various manifestations of resistance, highlighting the need for a more comprehensive approach.

This is not to dismiss the potential of legal reforms, which may play an important role in naming and calling for action on a particular policy problem. The experiences of a female staff member working in the office of the mayor of Bogotá highlight the need for explicit legislation to combat holes in existing legislation -and the idea that such behaviors are "normal" in politics. Rape threats by a member of the mayor's staff could not be prosecuted, it was argued, because they were not made from a work phone, thus it could not be considered sexual harassment in the workplace. The threats also could not be treated as a case of violence against women, because they did not constitute "domestic violence" per se. Her colleagues told her, further, that she could not come to the office to do her work and pressured her to give up her position.¹⁶ Her frustrations in this case reveal the importance of creating a legal framework to ensure that women can fulfill their duties as public officials.

To date, however, it must also be mentioned that the Bolivian law, which has inspired similar proposals in other countries across the region, has not achieved its innovative goals. Of more than nearly 300 cases lodged by Acobol, only one case (that of local councilwoman Magda Haase Pérez) has been successful. After she reported that she had been coerced by six council members and the mayor to renounce her seat, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal ruled that she had been a victim of violence against women in politics and she was then reinstated to her seat. A key difficulty in ensuring compliance with the law is that local police tend to attribute these types of acts to "general insecurity" rather than to violence stemming from discrimination against women in the political sphere. In an effort to ensure that this legislation is respected, Acobol has initiated a project to monitor implementation of the law and push for the timely resolution of cases.¹⁷

While physical violence may be most appropriately addressed through legal channels, the other three forms of violence against women in politics -psychological, economic and symbolic- may require other types of interventions, alongside or separately from legislative proposals. While generally receiving less attention, there are examples of other initiatives in the region -and globally- that might serve as additional inspiration for campaigns across Latin America. To generate public awareness and support for change, civil society groups can create partnerships and networks to monitor, document and address violence against women in politics. In Ecuador, for example, the Association of Women at the Municipal Level collected testimonies from local female politicians to propose draft legislation, speaking to 100 town councilors and civil society representatives in 2007. The network also set up a call center to provide free advice from legal and political advisers, as well as to gather further testimonies, recognizing that the lack of data contributes to denial of the problem (^{NDI, 2014}).

In addition to working to secure public pledges from political elites to ensure women's safety during elections, gender equality concerns can be integrated into electoral observation missions (^{Muñoz-Pogossian, 2013}). The National Democratic Institute, notably, has begun to address gender-based electoral violence in its electoral observation analysis and reporting, as well as to share strategies to mitigate it during training sessions for female candidates (^{NDI, 2014}). Political funding initiatives provide an opportunity to counteract the economic violence that women may confront at the candidate stage. Countries in various regions have established incentives for parties to nominate and/or elect more women (^{Krook and Norris, 2014}), a recent example being Chile, which introduced a financial bonus for electing women as part of a broader package of electoral reform approved in early 2015.

Symbolic violence appears to be one of the most pervasive forms of violence against women in politics, at the same time that it is one of the most naturalized. Rendering women more visible and accepted as political actors may be a tall order, given how deeply gender norms are engrained in many societies. Within legislative institutions, a promising path is to foster what the Inter-Parliamentary Union calls a "gender-sensitive parliament", rethinking practices and norms of parliament -and politics- from a gender equality perspective (^{Palmieri, 2011}). In addition to establishing sexual harassment policies and introducing policies for better work-life balance, this may entail creating spaces within congressional buildings to portray and acknowledge women as political actors, combating the tendency to include only statues and portraits of men. In Brazil, for instance, there are photo exhibitions portraying all the female deputies and female senators, placed in corridors with extensive traffic by politicians as well as members of the media and the general public. Similarly, visitors to the presidential palace, as well as the president's reelection website,¹⁸ prominently feature the title "presidenta."

Mobilizing mainstream and social media, finally, may be a powerful means for exposing and combating violence against women in politics. Programming funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development in several countries, notably, provides gender training for journalists and recruits female reporters to engage in political reporting as a double-pronged strategy to enhance gender-sensitivity in media coverage, including heightened attention to acts of violence against female politicians (^{Krook et al., 2014}). Social media can be an especially powerful way for citizens as individuals and as a collectivity to expose acts of violence and garner support for projects to empower women in politics. Training programs for female candidates can also address how to decrease vulnerability and respond effectively to on-line attacks (^{Bardall, 2013}).

In sum, legislative initiatives are only one among many potential strategies that might be deployed to tackle the problem of violence against women in politics. The need to devise such a comprehensive approach, however, only becomes fully visible with an expanded definition of this concept. The perspective advocated here, we propose, is closely in line with how inductive theorizing of this phenomenon has developed in recent years. Academics and practitioners list practices of economic and symbolic violence with their definitions of political harassment and violence in Latin America, although they subsume these practices under the larger heading of psychological violence. We argue that a revised and more precise vocabulary not only better reflects the larger literature on "violence," but also opens up new opportunities to comprehend and articulate the issue at hand -and in turn, devise more effective interventions to make politics more inclusive of women, giving them both access and voice within political institutions.

Conclusions

Violence against women in politics is increasingly recognized around the world -but especially in Latin America- as an emerging tactic to deter women's political participation as candidates and elected officials. In this article, we survey how this concept has been defined by academics and practitioners across the region, largely in terms of physical and psychological violence, and then draw on global data and research in various academic disciplines to propose expanding this concept to include two further forms of violence: economic and symbolic. These forms of violence, we emphasize, are already implicit in many existing definitions of violence against women in politics but have not yet been theorized as such. We provide examples of all four types of violence in Latin American countries and then consider a range of solutions that might be pursued by state and civil society actors in light of this broader definition. We argue that a more comprehensive approach provides the best bet for tackling violence in all its forms.

We contend that attending to these issues is important not only for women interested in pursuing a political career, but also to citizens and the academic community more broadly. Female politicians are clearly the ones most directly affected, with studies by NGOs suggesting that incidents of violence leave women demoralized and excluded from the centers of decision-making, leading them to be less likely than men to stand for reelection, or to leave after fewer terms served (^{Herrera, Arias, and Garcia, 2011}; ^{SAP International, 2006}). In Bolivia, for example, 48 per cent of the women leaving office in 2010 reported being victims of such violence (^{Acobol, 2012}). In contexts where women are already much less likely than men to consider pursuing a political career (Fox and ^{Lawless, 2005}), these experiences can, in turn, depress women's political ambitions more generally. These difficulties signal ongoing challenges to women's access and voice not easily remedied by the introduction of gender quotas and other tactics to empower women in the political realm.

Yet the acts that we identify also represent a fundamental violation of the principles of equality and non-discrimination embedded in legal frameworks around the globe, highlighting the profound implications of these acts for protecting core democratic values. Constitutions in over 130 countries, for example, explicitly guarantee equality between women and men.¹⁹ Moreover, Article 7 of the United Nations' Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, signed by 188 countries, states that governments will "ensure to women, on equal terms with men, the right ... to hold public office and perform all public functions at all levels of government". Efforts to block women's inclusion as women thus can be framed as a core violation of women's political rights.

Violence against women in politics also poses a threat to core democratic values. The types of cases pursued by the IPU Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians,²⁰ which are in many ways similar to acts of violence against women in politics, suggest that such acts may even qualify as human rights violations -posing a threat both to citizens and to the integrity of the political system itself. Additionally, international organizations and national governments recognize the need to adopt or revise legislation on violence against women, with the United Nations pushing all states to adopt and enforce, by 2015, laws that address and punish all forms of such violence. Democracy, finally, is challenged when public officials are prevented -through intimidation and coercion- from exercising the functions to which they have been elected or appointed (^{Herrera, Arias and García, 2011}). Violence against women in politics thus not only threatens to hollow out national and international commitments to gender-balanced decision-making, but can also affect the integrity of the political system itself.