UPR Sexual Rights Database

National Report:
Para 72) Act No. 5378/2014 amending article 229 of the Criminal Code relating to family violence, together with Act No. 1160/97 as amended by Act No. 4628/12, established a new definition of the crime of family violence which dispensed with the need for the violence to be habitual and for victim and perpetrator to be living together; they also increased the maximum penalty from three to six years imprisonment. The executive branch is considering a bill on comprehensive protection for women against all forms of violence.

Stakeholder Summary:
Para 23) AI indicated that although all recommendations to uphold the rights of women and girls and to protect them from violence were accepted, legislation to prevent and punish violence against women has yet to be passed.

National Report:
Para 141) At all levels and in all modes of education, the curriculum takes a rights-based approach and promotes proper treatment and the equality of men and women, with emphasis on the prevention of violence against children and women.
Para 167) Act No. 5777/16 on the Comprehensive Protection of Women from All Forms of Violence was adopted. The Act provides for prevention, care, protection, punishment and comprehensive reparation in the public and private spheres, covers various forms of violence – sexual, physical, psychological, remote, economic, political and workplace violence – and establishes penalties of 10 to 30 years’ imprisonment for femicide. The regulations implementing the Act were adopted under Decree No. 6973/2017.
Para 168) The second National Plan to Combat Violence against Women (2015–2020) was adopted by Decree No. 5140/16, which also established the Inter-Agency Board for the Prevention of Violence against Women. Eighteen agencies from the three branches of government, as well as civil society organizations, are represented on the Board; it is coordinated by the Ministry for Women, which is the advisory body for implementation of Act No. 5777/2016. The implementing regulations were adopted in 2019.
Para 169) The Women’s Support Service provides comprehensive care, information and counselling to women in situations of domestic, sexual, physical, economic and psychological violence in the regional women’s centres and at the Ciudad Mujer Centre Ñande Kerayvoty Renda. The provision of these support services for a life from violence is coordinated by the Ministry for Women.
Para 170) The National Houses of Justice Programme provides free legal advice. An office in Asunción provides advice and legal representation as a result of an agreement between the Ministry of Justice and American University (Paraguay).
Para 171) In 2016, the Civil Service Secretariat adopted a protocol for intervention and guidelines for responses to discrimination and harassment in the workplace (decision No. 516). In 2018, the Secretariat drafted a protocol for action in cases of workplace violence and a guide to ensuring that internal rules are informed by a gender perspective and the imperatives of non-discrimination and respect (decisions No. 387 and No. 388). In 2019, it set up a permanent commission of inquiry and an office for confidential advice in respect of workplace violence.
Para 172) In 2019, the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security created an office to respond to and prevent workplace violence and defined a procedure for responses to such violence (including physical violence, psychological violence or mobbing and sexual violence).
Para 173) The health services follow the instructions in a handbook on comprehensive assistance to victims of domestic and gender-based violence, in which uniform procedures for such assistance and for the collection of evidence are laid out. The Mercedes Sandoval House for Women ensures care and protection by providing housing, security, psychological support, legal assistance, medical care, educational support for children and opportunities to generate income.
Para 174) The Ministry for Women administers the free helpline 137, an operating system designed to provide security for women victims of violence that has nationwide coverage and is available 24 hours a day. Since 2019, the Observatory on Women’s Right to a Life Free from Violence has monitored and conducted research on violence against women with a view to designing public policies, informed by data collected in coordination with other observatories, for the prevention and elimination of such violence.
Para 175) The Public Prosecution Service has a specialized unit that investigates cases of domestic violence and a technical gender office that has a facility for the reception of complaints at the Centre Ciudad Mujer. The Service’s General Instruction No. 9/11 provides for immediate assistance to women victims within the framework of investigations into domestic and gender-based violence.
Para 176) The Ministry of the Interior’s Comprehensive Management of Public Safety Programme contributes to the prevention of domestic violence. The Department for the Assistance of Victims of Domestic Violence was created in 2018.
Para 177) Following a competitive examination, the Council of the Judiciary hired 16 defence lawyers specializing in matters relating to gender-based violence (2018) to work in 11 departments and the Capital District. Public defenders receive ongoing training in this area at the Education and Training Centre for Public Defenders.
Para 178) Since 2017, the Judicial Secretariat for Gender Issues has monitored the application of Act No. 5777/16 by courts and tribunals in order to build a database of relevant jurisprudence. It collects information on equality indicators, which are published by the Gender Observatory. Since 2019, the Secretariat, serving as a link to the court system, has been more heavily involved in cases at the Centre Ciudad Mujer.
Para 179) Through the Regional Programme to Combat Violence against Women in Latin America, the Supreme Court conducts analyses and provides training for magistrates and other officials of judicial districts to ensure the proper application of the Act. A memorandum of understanding was signed with United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women in 2018. In October 2020, magistrates from magistrates’ courts and employees of the Office for the Assistance of Victims of Violence – an office created pursuant to agreement No. 642/2010 and made a part of the magistrates’ courts of Central Department in accordance with agreement No. 1415/2020 – began receiving training on nonworking days or outside working hours.
Para 180) Several institutions undertook outreach and awareness-raising initiatives in connection with violence against women and the related legal framework, including by organizing campaigns, training sessions and publications or by taking other steps.
Para 181) The Ministry for Women and the Judicial Secretariat for Gender Issues are working on a draft bill that would create courts and tribunals specializing in violence against women.
Para 182) The project “Paraguay Protects Women, Children and Adolescents from Violence in the Context of the COVID-19 Emergency”, promoted by the United Nations Development Programme, facilitated the development of protocols for the issuance of protection orders by magistrates’ courts in cases of domestic violence and responses to workplace harassment, sexual harassment and mobbing in the judicial sphere.

UN Compilation:
Para 14) The United Nations country team noted that, in a historic 2019 judgment, a person had been convicted of femicide in the death of a trans woman. However, discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity or expression remained pervasive in the practice of public institutions.
Para 53) [HR Committee] was concerned about the increase in domestic and sexual violence against women, girls and adolescents and about reports of an alarming number of femicides. The fact that only a very small number of femicides had been investigated since it was established as a crime in 2016 was of particular concern. The United Nations country team was of the view that the 78 per cent rise in the number of calls to the domestic violence centre between 2019 and 2020 was a sign of the stress families were under.

Stakeholder Summary:
Para 15) JS9 emphasized … the double discrimination faced by women of African descent, who are vulnerable to various forms of sexual violence.
Para 74) Two submissions reported that Act No. 5777/16 on the Comprehensive Protection of Women from All Forms of Violence established femicide as a criminal offence; however, the fact that the Act contained no reference to gender was detrimental to transgender and lesbian women and could lead to it being applied in a discriminatory way. KR added that political violence against women had not been defined as a specific offence.
Para 75) Several submissions noted that during the COVID-19, gender-based violence and child abuse and mistreatment had increased. JS12 added that the State had done little to provide protection and the courts had done nothing. UC was concerned about the limited provision of prevention and support services for women.