- After winning a public tender for 160,000 euros, Fundación ETEA enters the DAI’s pull of expert advisory organisations, which implements millionaire projects with USAID funds.
- The call for proposals requires a consultancy team backed by an institution with operational capacity in Honduras and more than 10 years of experience in research in specific areas such as development planning, gender and intercultural studies, among others..
- The research document will serve as a basis for the Local Governance Activity of Honduras (GLH – DAI) to work on instruments to reduce gender-based violence and irregular migration.
DAI, in the framework of the Local Governance Honduras (GLH) programme, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), has selected Fundación ETEA – Development Institute of University Loyola to carry out the research consultancy “Study on gender-based violence (GBV) as a driver of irregular migration of young indigenous women”.
According to Michela Accerenzi, regional coordinator of Fundación ETEA for Central America and researcher of the consultancy on behalf of the institution, the specific objective of the study “is to investigate the extent to which gender-based violence (GBV) acts as a driving factor for irregular migration that will allow different actors to identify future strategies to reduce gender-based violence and irregular migration based on evidence. To this end, the main forms of GBV against indigenous women in Western Honduras will be identified, as well as their perception of access to basic services, limitations to community participation as conditioning elements for being subjected to GBV and deciding to migrate. In addition, the aim is to identify women’s knowledge about their rights and about the services and institutional framework that provide support and help in case of being victims of GBV, in order to avoid irregular migration.
Research to improve public policy on gender
In addition to Michela, Marco Gemignani and Yolanda Hernández from University Loyola and Rebecca Williams from Grand Valley State University are participating as researchers. Alfonso Sánchez, also from University Loyola, is participating as an expert in quantitative analysis.
The research will be carried out with a special focus on the Lenca and Chortí indigenous population in six departments of western Honduras. It is also planned to consult women’s organisations and public institutions that provide services to women who suffer gender-based violence at the local level.
As a result of the study, it is expected to generate relevant information, disaggregated by age group, indigenous group of belonging, comparison of data between groups, educational levels of the study universe and economic activity, which will serve as evidence for the interventions of decision-makers, as well as programmes and projects working on the prevention and care of GBV and prevention of irregular migration.
Gender-based violence and irregular migration in Honduras
In Honduras, women are affected by a spiral of crimes that threaten their integrity and their lives. The majority of women’s complaints are for sexual crimes, domestic and intra-family violence. Thirty-six percent of the victims of the total number of deaths of women between 2012 and 2020 are young women between the ages of 20 and 29, although the probability of being a victim of this crime increases from the age of 15 onwards.
USAID, through the Local Governance Honduras Activity implemented by DAI, works to improve local service delivery systems, thereby contributing to improving the social and economic livelihoods of citizens in 45 municipalities in Honduras. In addition, it works with an emphasis on supporting Local Economic Development Initiatives to improve access to opportunities that in turn contribute to reducing irregular migration in the most vulnerable departments of Honduras.
The drivers of this migration are complex and one of these drivers is discrimination and gender-based violence faced by specific vulnerable groups of young people, such as young women. For this reason, we want to further study GBV as a factor that influences young women’s decision to migrate irregularly.