CEG-INTEC and the Attorney General's Office start comprehensive training workshops on Gender and Justice
SANTO DOMINGO – The Center for Gender Studies Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo (CEG-INTEC) began the day of workshops on Comprehensive Training in Gender and Justice, aimed at improving specific care services for women and girls who suffer from gender-based violence in the Dominican Republic and making their legal rights known.
This is a project in collaboration with the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic (PGR) through the Directorate of Gender Violence (UGV) and Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AESCID). This training process is aimed at prosecutors, assistant lawyers, UGV coordinators and staff of the Línea de Vida contact center at the national level, with the purpose of contributing to the strengthening of effective criminal prosecution with quality technical standards in cases of gender violence against women.
The opening event of the workshops was attended by Judge Ana Andrea Villa Camacho, director of the Gender Violence Directorate, Ana Álvarez, head of AECID projects, and the dean of the INTEC Social Sciences and Humanities Area Dalul Ordehi.
“It is a key, necessary, useful and pertinent element to train ourselves in this complex and special crime that we work on. Violence against women is a daily struggle. Incorporating the gender perspective is important because this, together with gender violence, challenges criminal law”, Villa Camacho stated in his intervention.
In turn, the project presented by the management team of the CEG-INTEC aims to optimize the care spaces for women victims of gender violence; guarantee their safety and that of their families; promote their national, economic and social recovery and explore ways to achieve legal, free and universal assistance.
"That women can know their rights and demand before them," said Mary Cantisano Rojas, academic coordinator of this training program. They also seek to improve inter-institutional coordination so that the effort for the affected women is developed by the institutions, and not by the women themselves.
The 37 participants of workshop I, Gender perspective, roles, stereotypes in the intervention of violence against women They have responsibilities in different provinces of the country: Barahona, La Vega, Puerto Plata, San Juan de la Maguana, San Pedro de Macorís, Santiago de los Caballeros, Duarte, Valverde, Dajabón, Peravia, La Romana, National District, Greater Santo Domingo and Bahoruco. They expressed the urgency of continuing to contribute with the proper guidelines for effective care, investigation and prosecution in cases of gender-based violence, domestic violence and sexual crimes.
The program consists of six intensive workshops. The first addresses the gender perspective, roles, stereotypes in the intervention of violence against women. The second will be based on the approaches and constructions of violence.
The guarantees and rights of the victims of sexist violence will be part of the programming of the third workshop, while the fourth will teach the tools to correctly implement cases of gender violence, domestic violence and sexual crimes at the legal level.
The correct qualification and legal argumentation in matters of gender violence and the importance of self-care of the teams and officials who work on cases of violence against women will be the topics of workshops 5 and 6 of the program.
Desiree del Rosario Sosa, general coordinator of the CEG-INTEC and of the comprehensive training workshops, considered it necessary for women and men to continue together to eliminate gender violence in Dominican society. "We cannot continue talking about democracy when there are so many manifestations of inequality, violence, marginality that definitely contravenes what is the possibility of living free of violence," argued the expert.
Ana Álvarez, head of projects at the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AESCID), motivated the participants to deepen their knowledge of the workshops. “It is always healthy to take a little time and give ourselves the task of giving each other feedback, updating ourselves, rediscovering concepts that we had forgotten, it is healthy to make this educational community together”.
Crisalmy Mateo, academic assistant, and Ramona Guillén, pedagogical assistant of the virtual classroom, are also part of the event's coordination team. The faculty is made up of María Jesús Pola, Nadia Ventura, Patricia Santana, María Rosalba Díaz, Isaura Suárez and Esther Agelán.