Q

For the second year in a row,

people in Latin America are less
likely to say they live in countries
where women are treated with
respect and dignity than people in any
other region, according to a recent Gallup
survey. A median of 35 percent of adults
across 22 Latin American countries said
women are treated with respect in their
nations, about half as high as percentages
in any other region, Gallup said, though
the figure disguises wide differences
between countries. How are women far-
ing in Latin America, and what are the
most important issues facing women in
the region? Where has progress been
made and how has that been achieved?
What more needs to be done to promote
gender equality?
A
Joan Caivano, deputy to the
president and director of special
projects at the Inter-American
Dialogue: "In 2000, a Dialogue
report concluded, 'the highest circles of
power [in Latin America and the
Caribbean] still remain largely male domi-
nated.' Today, that is certainly not the case.
Four countries have female heads of state.
The number of women legislators has
jumped 50 percent, and women's partici-
pation in national cabinets grew more than
150 percent. Key drivers of this progress are
electoral quota laws. Having more women
in political power has brought new legisla-
tion on issues affecting womenon elec-
toral quotas, domestic violence, childcare
and workplace discrimination.
International conventions and efforts by
women's movements have helped advance
this progressive legal landscape. But gains
are not consistent across countries. Areas
of inequity remain on workplace discrimi-
nation, poverty and the persistent gap
between law and practice. High on the
unfinished agenda are domestic violence
and reproductive rights. Latin America has
one of the world's highest rates of violence
against women. Factors driving violence
include displacement by armed conflict,
Inside This Issue
BOARD OF ADVISORS
Copyright 2014, Inter-American Dialogue
Page 1 of 4
www.thedialogue.org Friday, October 24, 2014
FEATURED Q&A: What Are the Most
Critical Issues Facing the Region's Women?....1
Governor of Mexico's Guerrero
State Resigns Over Missing Students ................2
Man Killed in Chile Bomb
Attack Was Innocent: Official ..............................2
Rousseff Pulling Ahead of
Neves Before Sunday's Vote: Poll ......................2
Ecuador Planning Launch of
Payment System Without Banks .........................2
Judge Schedules Hearing for
Citi on Argentina Interest Payment .....................3
FEATURED Q&A
What Are the Most Critical Issues Facing the Region's Women?
Continued on page 3
ngel Aguirre, the embattled governor of
Mexico's Guerrero state, resigned
Thursday. Aguirre has been criticized for
failing to effectively fight corruption in
the state, where local police officers are
accused of abducting 43 students last
month. See story on page 2.
File Photo: Mexican Government.
Embattled Governor of Mexico's
Guerrero State Steps Down
Diego Arria
Director,
Columbus Group
Genaro Arriagada
Nonresident Senior
Fellow,
Inter-American
Dialogue
Joyce Chang
Global Head of
Emerging Markets
Research, JPMorgan
Chase & Co.
W. Bowman Cutter
Former Partner,
E.M. Warburg
Pincus
Dirk Donath
Senior Partner,
Aimara Capital LLC
Jane Eddy
Managing Director,
Corporate & Govt.
Ratings Group,
Standard & Poor's
Marlene Fernndez
Corporate Vice
President for
Government Relations,
Arcos Dorados
Peter Hakim
President Emeritus,
Inter-American
Dialogue
Donna Hrinak
President,
Boeing Brazil
Jon Huenemann
Vice President,
U.S. & Int'l Affairs,
Philip Morris Int'l
James R. Jones
Co-chair,
Manatt Jones
Global Strategies LLC
Craig A. Kelly
Director, Americas
International Gov't
Relations,
Exxon Mobil
John Maisto
Director,
U.S. Education Finance
Group
Nicols Mariscal
Chairman,
Grupo Marhnos
Thomas F.
McLarty III
President,
McLarty Associates
Carlos Paz-Soldan
Partner,
DTB Associates, LLP
Beatrice Rangel
Director,
AMLA Consulting LLC
Jos Antonio Ros
Chief Executive Officer,
Vadium Technology Inc.
Gustavo Roosen
Chairman of the Board,
Envases Venezolanos
Andrs Rozental
President,
Rozental & Asociados
and Senior Fellow,
Brookings Institution
Everett Santos
President,
DALEC LLC
Shelly Shetty
Head, Latin America
Sovereign Ratings,
Fitch Inc.-
Start Content-
Political News
Governor of Mexico's Guerrero State
Resigns Over Missing Students
The governor of Mexico's Guerrero state,
where 43 students were believed to have
been abducted by local police and handed
over to a local gang, resigned Thursday
due to pressure from his political party,
The New York Times reported. ngel
Aguirre, of the leftist Party of the
Democratic Revolution, agreed to quit
after party leaders said they would
attempt to push him out of office in order
to quell escalating civil unrest in the
southwestern state. Aguirre said Thursday
that he was stepping down in order to
facilitate the search for the students, The
Wall Street Journal reported. "I am con-
vinced this is the most responsible deci-
sion," he said. Last week, demonstrators
set fire to the state capitol building in
Chilpancingo, heavily damaging it,
demanding that Aguirre step aside, The
New York Times reported. On Wednesday,
protesters torched the city hall in Iguala,
where the students disappeared Sept. 26
after clashing with police officers. Aguirre
has not been implicated in the students'
disappearance, but he has faced an
increasing level of criticism for failing to
effectively fight corruption among local
politicians and police. Mexican Attorney
General Jess Murillo Karam said
Wednesday that the mayor of Iguala and
his wife were the "probable masterminds"
behind the students' disappearance.
Lawmakers in Guerrero must now name a
successor to Aguirre, who technically
asked for an indefinite leave of absence
and could ask to return. Few political ana-
lysts believe that will happen, however,
The New York Times reported. Aguirre's
resignation follows that of Michoacn's
governor in June. Governor Fausto Vallejo
stepped down, saying he was resigning
because of a health condition that he did
not disclose. Vallejo's resignation fol-
lowed 16 months of insurrection by vigi-
lantes fighting the Knights Templar drug
cartel, The Wall Street Journal reported.
[See related Q&A in Tuesday's issue of the
Advisor.]
Man Killed in Chile Bomb Attack
Was Innocent: Official
A man who was killed last month when a
bomb exploded in Santiago was not the
person who placed the device, Chile's
attorney general's office announced
Thursday, following an investigation, EFE
reported. The victim, Sergio Landskron,
29, was walking through the area when he
picked up a backpack that he had found,
and it exploded, the investigation found,
said Ral Guzmn, the head of the
Southern Metropolitan Attorney
General's Office in Santiago. "We can con-
firm that the person who died did not
participate in the placement of the explo-
sive device that took his life, according to
the information gathered up to today,"
Guzmn told reporters. Landskron, an
indigent drug addict, did not know the
backpack contained a bomb when he
picked it up, said Guzmn, adding that
Landskron was the first innocent victim
killed in a bombing in Chile since the
restoration of the country's democracy in
1990. "We are relieved because the name
of my son, who was innocent, has been
cleared," Landskron's father, also named
Sergio Landskron, told ADN Radio. There
have been about 300 small bombings in
Santiago since 2005, but most have
occurred at night without causing major
damage or casualties, The Wall Street
Journal reported. Another person was
killed by a bomb in 2009, but that person
was the suspected bomber, said authori-
ties. The Sept. 25 bombing that killed
Landskron happened just two weeks after
another explosive blew up in a shopping
area at a subway station in Santiago. That
attack injured 14 people. Two men and a
woman have been arrested in connection
with that incident.
Page 2 of 4
NEWS BRIEFS
Copyright 2014, Inter-American Dialogue
Inter-American Dialogues Latin America Advisor Friday, October 24, 2014
Rousseff Pulling Ahead of Neves
Before Sunday's Vote: Poll
President Dilma Rousseff is pulling
ahead of her rival, Senator Acio
Neves, just before Sunday's presi-
dential election in Brazil, according
to a poll released Thursday,
Bloomberg News reported. In the
Ibope survey, Rousseff had 49 per-
cent support as compared to 41 per-
cent for Neves ahead of the runoff.
The poll was conducted Oct. 20-22
and has a margin of error of plus or
minus two percentage points.
Ecuador Planning Launch of
Payment System Without Banks
Ecuador's central bank has under-
taken an effort to launch a national
mobile payment system called
JoMoPay, which would be able to
handle business-to-business and
peer-to-peer transactions, as well as
in-store purchases and cash in and
out at a low rate with no bank or
telecom partners, PYMNTS.com
reported Thursday. Analyst
Elizabeth McQuerry at Payments
Views highlighted that the program
will be owned and run by the cen-
tral bank and lacks a traditional
payment infrastructure. She also
noted its relatively low cost.
Televisa Posts Q3 Loss Stemming
From Sale of Stake in Iusacell
Mexican media company Grupo
Televisa reported a third-quarter
loss Thursday due to a one-time hit
stemming from the sale of its stake
in Mexican wireless operator Grupo
Iusacell, Bloomberg News reported.
Televisa reported a net loss of 182.8
million pesos ($13.5 million) as
compared to net income of 2.39 bil-
lion pesos the previous year. Last
month, Televisa agreed to sell
Iusacell, which has had difficulty
competing against Amrica Mvil,
at a loss for $717 million.
Aguirre reportedly agreed to
quit after leaders of his party said
they would attempt to push him
out in order to quell escalating
civil unrest.
Company News
Judge Schedules Hearing for Citi
on Argentina Interest Payment
The U.S. judge at the center of the dispute
between Argentina and bondholders who
have refused to accept the country's debt
restructurings late on Wednesday sched-
uled a hearing for Dec. 2 to hear argu-
ments on whether Citigroup should be
allowed to process interest payments
Argentina is scheduled to make on some
of its bonds, Reuters reported. The hear-
ing in the Manhattan courtroom of Judge
Thomas Griesa would happen less than a
month before an interest payment by
Argentina is due on Dec. 31. Citigroup
has said Argentina could impose criminal
and regulatory sanctions if it does not
process the payments on dollar-denomi-
nated bonds issued under Argentine law.
Earlier this year, Griesa barred Bank of
New York Mellon from processing a $539
million interest payment to the holders of
some restructured
bonds. The judge
had prohibited the
South American
country's govern-
ment from paying
the holders of the
restructured bonds
unless it also paid
$1.33 billion to
bondholders who
refused to accept the
debt swaps, a move
the government of President Cristina
Fernndez de Kirchner has consistently
refused. Griesa's orders and Argentina's
refusal to pay the so-called "holdout"
bondholders led Argentina to default in
July after being blocked from making the
interest payment on the restructured
bonds. For the past two quarters, Griesa
has allowed Citi's Argentina branch to
process one-time payments to bondhold-
ers. A Citigroup spokeswoman declined
to comment to Reuters. Representatives
for the holdouts, led by Elliott
Management's NML Capital Ltd. and
Aurelius Capital Management had no
immediate comment or could not be
reached for comment.
Inter-American Dialogues Latin America Advisor Friday, October 24, 2014
Page 3 of 4 Copyright 2014, Inter-American Dialogue
rapid urbanization, assaults on sex work-
ers and human trafficking. Economic
conditions force women to remain in
abusive domestic arrangements or seek
work in precarious and dangerous situa-
tions. Given Latin America's cultural
conservatism and historical ties to the
Catholic Church, the subject of abortion
rights remains verboten. Although the
region's maternal mortality related to
illegal, unsafe abortions is the highest in
the world, most political leaders stub-
bornly oppose decriminalizing the pro-
cedureeven in the case of rape, incest or
to save the mother's life. The conse-
quences of unsafe abortion dispropor-
tionately affect poor and rural women.
Such injustice is a matter of human
rights and equal opportunity. It is up to
governments to commit resources and
political will to law enforcement and
public services in support of women's
reproductive rights."
A
Jacqueline Pitanguy, execu-
tive director of Citizenship,
Study, Research, Information
and Action (CEPIA) and mem-
ber of the National Council for the
Rights of Women in Brazil: "There has
been progress in the situation of women
in the region. Constitutions have been
reformed to guarantee equal rights, dis-
criminatory laws have been abolished.
Progress is unquestionable in relation to
the participation of women in the labor
market, where they increased their pres-
ence from 34.1 percent to 42 percent
between 1990 and 2010. In Brazil, this
rate was 48.9 percent in 2010. However,
even though this increase has happened
all over the region, there are significant
variations between countries. While men
still receive more than women for the
same work, this difference is decreasing.
Patriarchal values are, however, still per-
sistent: while women went out of the
home, to work, men did not enter the
home to share family responsibilities,
resulting in an overload of work, a barri-
er to women's progress in the labor mar-
ket. Women advanced in education. In
Brazil, they study more years than men.
Between 18 and 24 years of age, 32 per-
cent of women and 28 percent of men
are still studying. However, in spite of the
fact that this is the region with the most
women holding the presidency, their
participation in politics is very low (25
percent), particularly in Brazil (12 per-
cent). The main barrier to the full
advancement of women in the region is
cultural: a combination of patriarchal-
ism and a growing influence of conserva-
tive religions that deny sexual and repro-
ductive rights and emphasize the domes-
ticity of the role of women."
A
Maria de los ngeles
Fernndez R., political analyst
and founder of 'Hay Mujeres':
"The subprime crisis of 2008
found Latin America on strong footing.
Revenue from the 'commodities super-
cycle' permitted advances in combating
poverty as well as an increase in its mid-
dle classes. This coincided with the rise
to executive power of various women:
Michelle Bachelet (Chile), Laura
Chinchilla (Costa Rica), Cristina
Fernndez de Kirchner (Argentina) and
Dilma Rousseff (Brazil). Their impact is
undeniable but should not be exaggerat-
ed. Even for someone who has a stated
commitment to gender equality, like
Bachelet who also headed U.N. Women,
this does not translate to automatic
results. Just as it is not gender that
defines the performance of a woman as
the head of a country, it can be observed
that gender equality policies that are
Featured Q&A
Continued from page 1
Continued on page 4
Fernndez
File Photo: Argentine
Government.

High on the unfinished

agenda are domestic violence
and reproductive rights.

Joan Caivano
Page 4 of 4 Copyright 2014, Inter-American Dialogue
Inter-American Dialogues Latin America Advisor Friday, October 24, 2014
promoted will have different effects
depending on historical legacy, institu-
tional capacity, degree of democracy and
vulnerability to international pressure.
That Latin Americans are less likely than
people in other regions to say that
women are treated with respect and dig-
nity is indicative of how much remains to
be done. Although life is better than 20
years ago, as recognized by the Economic
Commission for Latin America and the
Caribbean (ECLAC), it remains the most
unequal region. When analyzing indica-
tors of physical, economic and decision-
making autonomy of women, ECLAC has
shown advances. However, it also warns
of areas such as labor where, despite the
economic growth of the last decade, there
persists a significant percent of women
among the poor and indigent. Equally, it
has called attention to the way in which
conditional transfer programs, while
effective at combatting poverty, have con-
tributed to reinforcing the stereotype of
women as mothers. In the period ahead,
gender equality will experience a litmus
test as some economies show signs of
deceleration."
The Advisor welcomes reactions to the
Q&A above. Readers can write editor
Gene Kuleta at gkuleta@thedialogue.org
with comments.
Featured Q&A
Continued from page 3
Latin America Advisor
is published every business day by the
Inter-American Dialogue, Copyright 2014
Erik Brand
Publisher
ebrand@thedialogue.org
Gene Kuleta
Editor
gkuleta@thedialogue.org
Megan Cook
Reporter, Assistant Editor
mcook@thedialogue.org
Inter-American Dialogue
Michael Shifter, President
Peter Hakim, President Emeritus
Genaro Arriagada, Nonresident Senior Fellow
Sergio Bitar, Nonresident Senior Fellow
Joan Caivano, Director, Special Projects
Maria Darie, Director, Finance & Administration
Ariel Fiszbein, Director, Education Program
Claudio Loser, Senior Fellow
Nora Lustig, Nonresident Senior Fellow
Margaret Myers, Director,
China and Latin America Program
Manuel Orozco, Senior Fellow
Jeffrey Puryear, Senior Fellow
Lisa Viscidi, Director, Energy Program
Latin America Advisor is published every
business day, except for major U.S. holidays, by
the Inter-American Dialogue at:
1211 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 510
Washington, DC 20036
Phone: 202-822-9002 Fax: 202-822-9553
www.thedialogue.org ISSN 2163-7962
Subscription Inquiries are welcomed at
freetrial@thedialogue.org
The opinions expressed by the members of the
Board of Advisors and by guest commentators do
not necessarily represent those of the publisher. The
analysis is the sole view of each commentator and
does not necessarily represent the views of their
respective employers or firms. The information in
this report has been obtained from reliable sources,
but neither its accuracy and completeness, nor the
opinions based thereon, are guaranteed. If you have
any questions relating to the contents of this publica-
tion, contact the editorial offices of the Inter-
American Dialogue. Contents of this report may not
be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or trans-
mitted without prior written permission from the
publisher.
Tap Into the Archive
Subscribers can now access more than 2,000 archived editions of the
Latin America Advisor through a new IP-protected, keyword search portal.
That's more than 6,000 expert commentaries, all at your fingertips.
Send an email to freetrial@thedialogue.org for access.
Photo: Matthew Petroff

In the period ahead, gender equality will experience a litmus test

as some economies show signs of deceleration.

Maria de los ngeles Fernndez R.