Challenges of women’s political participation in LATAM and the Caribbean.

Although the struggle of women for the recognition of their civic-political rights is more than two hundred years old, women are considered as a new actor in the political scenario where their political status, gender, race and social position are interrelated and limit their opportunities. From this perspective, the failure to adequately circumscribe them in the law makes them invisible and puts their lives at risk.

The phenomenon of inequality not only stems from the legal root, which has been slow to fully incorporate the principle of equality in all spheres, but also from the social environment: the precariousness of paid work, persistent discrimination in access to decision-making, the lack of care policies with a gender perspective, stereotypes regarding the public image that women who wish to participate in politics must comply with, among others.

Similarly, it is difficult to gain access to power regardless of the party in which women participate, but this is aggravated if they are rural women, if they are responsible for caring for others, and the limitations of public services limit the ability of women politicians to act. This is even worse if, in addition, you are an opposition politician, especially when in our countries we are seeing a regression of democracies as some governments in power resort to the criminalization of citizen protests (including those of women's movements), repression of public opinion and unclarified crimes against candidates, human rights defenders and journalists.

Likewise, gender-based political violence against women is adopting more sophisticated and cruel forms, as the use of digital media has increased not only criticism, defamation and symbolic violence against women, but also the hiring of third parties, technological experts, to supplant their identities, hack their networks, quickly spread fake news, appropriate their communication channels and WhatsApp or Telegram contacts, their banking information, tracking their geolocation, and threatening their families. This type of activity, which goes beyond the digital violence known as the Olympia Law - which consists of exposing intimate content without the consent of the person exposed - is what is now known as digital hitmen in the proposal of the Mexican Edurne Ochoa, since the way in which it is exercised is systematic and has a specific target, similar to the actions of organized crime hitmen, in order to displace women from public space.

According to the results of the report "Online gender violence against women with a public voice. Impact on freedom of expression", prepared by journalists Ingrid Beck, Florencia Alcaraz and Paula Rodríguez for the Regional Alliance for Free Expression and Information and UN Women, 80% of women who suffered online political violence limited their participation in networks, 40% said they had self-censored and 80% feared for their physical integrity and even for their lives. Attacks have an impact on the exercise of freedom of expression of those who suffer them. In this way, they subtract voices from the public debate and, consequently, undermine the quality of democracies.

For its part, the Summits of the Americas Secretariat (OAS) together with the Embassy of Canada, from June 2023, warned through a meeting on "challenges and good practices to ensure the integrity of information and counteract disinformation campaigns in electoral processes", that the use of artificial intelligence could have an impact on the impersonation of candidates, by generating false voice or video messages with positions contrary to their political platforms in order to discredit them and affect voting. Likewise, they expressed their moral concern about the state responsibility of public speeches, since it has been observed that from the institutional arena, hate speeches are expressed and mobilized towards supposed opponents, with the premise of "slander, and there will be something left".

Given this scenario, it is urgent to improve the conceptualization, classification, investigation and administration of justice in matters of gender-based political violence against women, including digital crimes to ensure greater security, protection and freedom for those who participate in the public space.