The Costa Rican government announced a new nationwide multi-institutional approach to preventing and combating violence against women, said the presidency this week.

The focus is on prevention, redefining masculinity, and changing cultural gender norms.

The policy envisions involving 22 state entities over the next 15 years to reduce violence against women in a country where over 13o women per day request a restraining order to protect herself from a partner, said Alejandra Mora Mora, Minister of the Status of Women and Executive President of the state agency INAMU, the national women’s institute.

PLANOVI, as the effort is called in Spanish, aims to promote changes in “macho culture” by fostering “non-violent masculinities.” Finally, efforts have also been outlined to promote gender equality, and guarantee greater protection for women from violence.

 

“PLANOVI has been built on a … human rights perspective, within the framework of the National System for the Prevention of Violence against Women and Domestic Violence. It … seeks cultural changes so that our country is instilled with the idea of non-tolerance of violence against the women,” said Minister Mora.

One of the most significant changes over previous approaches is that the new plan proposes work with children and adolescents to promote cultural values of non-violence and equality, and will develop this with the Ministry of Public Education (MEP).

For the first time, Costa Rica is implementing a public policy to prevent violence against women that is based on promoting a non-violent and egalitarian idea of masculinity, which also includes specific strategies to address media violence and the use of women’s bodies in advertising, explained Mora.

PLANOVI also outlines close work with communities and greater integration of civil society as partners in prevention.

Government agencies committed under this new policy, “to reduce the revictimization of women in state services, improve and expand their access to services, and strengthen mechanisms to protect against all forms of violence against women, including the risk of femicide.”

“We hope that this policy will … promote a non-sexist culture, to break with the cycles of social and intergenerational transmission of violence against women,” added Mora.

So far this year, 16 women have died in Costa Rica at the hands of a romantic partner in what are termed femicides, according to the Public Security Ministry.