Austerity is a policy that never works other than to alleviate banks and investors, who inevitably respond by paying themselves hefty bonuses. It causes untold harm to the least protected in society, directly and indirectly, through cutting the health expenditure and social protections that women, non-binary people and those who experience intersecting inequalities based on race, ethnicity and sexuality, need the most.

The Latin American and Caribbean region is not exempt from this global “pandemic”. Throughout their lives, all women and girls in the region are at risk of suffering gender-based violence in one of its various forms, and between 60% and 76% of women have been victims or experienced gender-based violence in some area of their lives (ECLAC, 2020).