MESECVI – the Follow-up Mechanism to the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment, and Eradication of Violence against Women, known as the Convention of Belém do Pará, in collaboration with the Regional Office of the UNFPA-LACRO Population Fund and the Network of Afro-Latin American, Afro-Caribbean and Diaspora Women, drafted its General Recommendation No. 5 on gender-based violence against African-American women, and as requested by the MESECVI Committee of Experts, the document was approved with some observations, including the inclusion of the perspective of African-American women in Brazil, who had not been consulted due to language barriers.
In this regard, the MESECVI Experts Committee held meetings with various Brazilian black women’s organizations on January the 16th and 30th to present and debate General Recommendation No. 5 with the aim of listening to civil society in Brazil and their comments in order to enrich the content of the Recommendation and include their perspectives in this document. These contributions will be incorporated into the text of the Recommendation. Leila Linhares Barsted, as a member of CEVI, took part in these meetings.