* The present document is being issued without formal editing.

** The annexes to the present document are available on the Committee’s website.

Information received from Ecuador on follow-up to the concluding observations on its tenth periodic report * , **

[Date received: 7 December 2023]

I.Follow-up information

1.In reference to document CEDAW/C/ECU/CO/10, the Government of Ecuador has the honour to present its midterm report. The main achievements include the establishment of the Ministry of Women and Human Rights and the significant increase in the budget for gender-based violence against women.

2.Significant efforts have been made to improve the recording of information on cases of gender-based violence against women through the Central Register of Victims, which aims to build a single record with data on the victim and survivor of violence and on the care she has received. In addition, the FemicidiosEC platform has been created, which allows for the procedural follow-up of femicides and other forms of fatal violence against women in the country.

3.Special mention should be made of the decriminalization of abortion in cases of rape for all women, through the Organic Act regulating the voluntary interruption of pregnancy for girls, adolescents and women in the event of rape (Official Gazette No.53, second supplement, 29 April 2022), which marks a milestone in guaranteeing women’s reproductive rights in Ecuador.

4.Regarding the prevention of workplace and sexual harassment, the Ministry of Labour has developed conceptual tools and carried out 828 Labour Code inspections. In the area of education, measures have been taken to ensure educational environments that are safe and that promote the transformation of sociocultural patterns. The judicial system has become specialized and has also facilitated access to justice and made it more transparent. The country has strengthened its victims reparations policy.

5.Through a Ministerial Agreement of 18 May 2021, access to education has been ensured for people in vulnerable situations, resulting in the enrolment of 5,557 girls, boys and adolescents in the educational system.

6.Annex A. Glossary of terms.

II.Follow-up information relating to paragraph 22 (a) of the concluding observations

A.Public institutions and policies

7.The Government of Ecuador, through Executive Decree No. 609 of 29 November 2022, established the Ministry of Women and Human Rights to prevent and eradicate violence against women, girls, boys and adolescents through the development, monitoring and evaluation of compliance with public policy, the coordination of specialized comprehensive protection systems, the implementation of violence prevention programmes and the provision of care, protection and comprehensive reparation services to ensure a life free of violence.

8.The Ministry of Women and Human Rights has 45 comprehensive protection service facilities that provide attention related to psychological care, social work and legal support. In 2021, there were 68,933 instances of comprehensive attention provided to women, girls, boys and adolescents. The corresponding total was 65,968 for 2022 and, as at September 2023, it stood at 50,930.

9.A progressive increase in the number of specialized centres to care for women victims and survivors of violence has been planned. In 2023, 9 of the 24 centres that are scheduled to be opened by 2025 had been established. In addition, a quality management system was implemented, following the parameters of the ISO 9001:2015 international standard, in order to certify the processes and improve the quality of the attention provided in direct services.

10.In order to improve the planning of national public policy and to monitor its progress, the Ministry of Women and Human Rights established a follow-up mechanism for the National Plan for the Prevention and Eradication of Violence against Women that operates at both the national and decentralized autonomous municipal government level. This mechanism has 143 indicators in line with the functions of the institutions in the national system to prevent and eradicate violence against women and girls established pursuant to the Comprehensive Organic Act to Prevent and Eradicate Violence against Women, which has provided inputs for the preparation of compliance reports and the adoption of public policies.

11.In 2023, rules of procedure were introduced for the Interinstitutional Committee, Commissions and Technical Committee of the national system to prevent and eradicate violence against women and girls, to prioritize specific annual activities and comply with the recommendations made in the evaluation of the Comprehensive Organic Act to Prevent and Eradicate Violence against Women, which was carried out by the National Assembly on 7 March 2023.

12.The Government, through the national equality councils, drafted five national agendas: intercultural and plurinational, disability, human mobility, gender and intergenerational. These agendas establish guidelines for the development and implementation of public policies with a focus on equality that should be considered in national, sectoral and local planning instruments (annex B).

13.The National Council for Gender Equality prepared and disseminated a toolbox that comprises a compilation of technical and conceptual instruments to provide advice in the mainstreaming of the principle of gender equality and non‑discrimination in local government management. A total of 720 toolboxes were distributed to 217 of the 221 cantons (98.1 per cent); to the 24 decentralized autonomous provincial governments, covering all of them; and to 111 decentralized autonomous parochial (rural) governments, covering 13.5 per cent of the total of 821. This pedagogical material contains nine technical tools organized around three central themes: public policies and gender, women’s political participation and combating gender-based violence.

14.The following instruments were adopted: the protocol for the prevention, detection and treatment of gender-based violence in sports, in 2022; the preliminary model for the institutional evaluation for accreditation purposes of universities and polytechnic schools for the incorporation of the gender approach, in 2023; the guide on how to approach gender-based violence in prevention, response and recovery in the context of emergencies and disasters, in 2023; the gender and climate change action plan; and the inter-institutional round table for the formulation of the policy for human rights defenders.

15.The objective of the intersectoral policy for the prevention of pregnancy in girls and adolescents is to standardize the mechanism for the inter-institutional referral of cases of children and adolescents from 10 to 19 years of age in situations of pregnancy, motherhood and fatherhood, to ensure the prompt provision of services. In 2021, 2022 and 2023, the Ministry of Public Health, the Ministry of Economic and Social Inclusion, the Ministry of Education and the Secretariat for Human Rights worked together to improve care, overcoming through their efforts the critical issues in the aforementioned problems. The result is a 0.35 per cent fall in the fertility rate in girls and 29.20 per cent in adolescents. (annex C).

B.Budgets

16.The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Finance records the amounts allocated to gender equality, through the system for the classification of spending on equality and environmental policies, according to which, in 2021, public sector institutions reported $0.02 million. In 2022 the amount reported was $745.47 million, while in 2023 (as of August) $512.34 million were reported. (annexes D, E, F and G).

C.General legislative measures and policies

17.Ecuador is committed to a process of legislative progress to protect and ensure the right to a life free of violence, for which the following norms have been adopted:

18.In 2021, gender-related persecution was incorporated into the Human Mobility Act as additional grounds for recognition of refugee status; although this category is not explicitly mentioned in the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. In addition, the instructions for the procedure to determine the status of refugees and stateless persons in Ecuador prioritized properly attending to applicants based on gender and to giving victims of gender-based violence the right to choose the gender of their interviewer, in order to avoid revictimization. To ensure application of these instructions, a continuous training programme was implemented for public servants responsible for citizen assistance. Ecuador, in coordination with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, carries out awareness-raising, training and capacity-building activities and deploys mobile brigades to facilitate access and improve interview processes, within the framework of international standards on asylum.

19.During the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, a national policy was developed that allows for the online submission of applications for asylum to ensure people’s effective access to their right to request international protection. This policy, established as a result of the crisis, has been maintained to date, benefiting 17,885 women (annex H).

D.Prevention

20.The Government has strengthened gender-based violence prevention capacities through different ongoing training processes and specialized training workshops for public servants and through the establishment of technical and educational tools. In addition, institutions in the national system to prevent and eradicate violence against women and girls carried out awareness-raising campaigns for the population and training and orientation activities to prevent gender-based violence and rights violations and to empower the victims when such violence and violations do occur.

21.The institutions in the national system to prevent and eradicate violence against women and girls coordinated among themselves to establish guidelines for care and protection, identify critical issues and compile disaggregated information at the national and local levels.

22.The activities are detailed in annex I.

E.Protection

23.The Ministry of Public Health established operational guidelines in the National Health System to address, detect and prevent gender-based violence. In 2021, 19,962 victims of gender-based violence received care, followed by 17,494 victims in 2022 and 7,380 victims in 2023.

24.The Ministry of Public Health defined operational guidelines to ensure quality health care for victims of gender-based violence, implementing a project to prevent pregnancy in girls and adolescents (2019–2022) and a project related to a comprehensive approach to sexual health and reproductive health in adolescents (2023–2025).

25.The 2021 Inter-Agency Round Table to Support the Rights of Paid Domestic Workers produced guidelines for paid domestic workers in the event of violence and harassment in the workplace in Ecuador and the “My Rights, Your Rights” communication campaign. In addition, the Round Table to Support the Rights of Paid Domestic Workers was evaluated and public policy guidelines on paid domestic workers were formulated.

26.The inter-institutional protocol for the reception of emergency alerts related to gender-based violence against women and intrafamily violence was developed, covering aspects ranging from the reception of alerts to inter-institutional coordination and the transmission of information, ensuring specialized attention and the coordinated management of emergency situations throughout Ecuador by means of the SISECU 911 hotline. The activities of the Cantonal Rights Protection Boards were supported to ensure the effective implementation of immediate administrative protection measures.

F.Specialized justice

27.On 16 June 2023, judges from all parts of Ecuador signed the Declaration for Judicial Ethics, the third paragraph of which contained a commitment to ensure access to justice for all persons, peoples, nationalities and groups under all circumstances, in equality and without any discrimination for reasons of social condition, sex, gender, age, race or other.

28.In June 2023, the National Court of Justice introduced a manual on the gender perspective in judicial proceedings and proceedings.

G.Reparations

29.The Government introduced an allowance for children and adolescents orphaned as a result of the violent death of their mother or female progenitor. From 2019 to 2022, through the Ministry of Economic and Social Inclusion, this allowance has been paid to 207 orphaned children and adolescents, 95 of whom were male and 112 were female. These minors, between the ages of 0 and 18, belong to 113 families affected by violent deaths, including femicides, murders, homicides and rapes resulting in the death of the victim.

30.The Secretariat for Higher Education, Science Technology and Innovation implemented two programmes for women victims of gender-based violence aimed at those studying at the third level in higher education institutions in Ecuador. Financial aid and scholarships are aimed at women who have been convicted of a misdemeanour, who are part of a criminal proceeding or, if the proceeding has concluded, who have a conviction related to gender-based violence. Four people were provided with financial aid and two people received scholarships.

H.Coordination, monitoring and data collection

31.On the Central Register of Victims platform, functional and technological capacities have been strengthened, variables were defined, the management and consumption of information for direct access to information was coordinated with the National Directorate of Public Registers and the First Bulletin was prepared on 22 November 2023 (annex J).

32.The FemicidiosEc tool, established in 2022, contains key descriptive information on victims and aggressors and the status of cases in process and is available at https://www.funcionjudicial.gob.ec/femicidiosec.

33.The National Council for Gender Equality established guidelines for the formation of citizen committees to monitor compliance with the Comprehensive Organic Act to Prevent and Eradicate Violence against Women and set up advisory councils, which are spaces where advice is provided to strengthen women’s participation in gender equality and LGBTI+ issues.

34.The Office of the Ombudsperson is responsible for monitoring and controlling the process of granting administrative measures and verifying compliance and enforcement, through the dpe.maps.gob.ec computer platform.

35.The National Statistics and Census Institute expanded the collection of data on violence through its 2021–2025 National Statistics Programme, a component of the national statistical system. The Security and Justice Indicator Statistical Strengthening Group of the Special Commission for Statistics on Security, Justice, Crime and Transparency, which is responsible for validating, consolidating and updating the figures for intentional homicides of women and femicides, gathers official information from data sources produced by the Council of the Judiciary, the Attorney General’s Office and the Ministry of the Interior.

36.The Ecuador Grows without Child Malnutrition Technical Secretariat designed and launched nationwide, on 1 March 2023, the intersectoral platform for the unified and universal nominal monitoring system, which gathers data in a nominal manner from multiple entities such as the Ministry of Public Health, the Ministry of Economic and Social Inclusion, the General Directorate of the Public Register and the Ministry of Education. This system is vital for the delivery of goods and services aimed at preventing and reducing chronic child malnutrition in Ecuador, and has registered a total of 91,310 pregnant women, of whom 89,810 receive medical care (98.36 per cent), as at 17 November 2023 (annexes K and L).

37.This platform allowed for more than 700,000 referrals to the Ministry of Public Health, the Ministry of Economic and Social Inclusion, the General Directorate of the Public Register and the Ministry of Education from June 2022 to September 2023, resulting in the timely provision of around 250,000 health, identity, education and comprehensive child development services.

III.Follow-up information relating to paragraph 22 (d) of the concluding observations

38.Ecuador, complying with its obligation to protect the constitutional right to work, equality, non-discrimination, a life free of violence and personal integrity, and considering the Committee’s recommendations, has developed a number of tools, which are described below.

•In 2020, a protocol was issued to prevent and address cases of discrimination, workplace harassment and/or any form of violence against women in the workplace, through Ministerial Agreement 2020-244 of the Ministry of Labour. In the period from 2021 to 2023, 828 inspections were carried out, 50 per cent of which focused specifically on verifying compliance with women’s human rights and on situations of discrimination or harassment.

•In 2021, the psychosocial risk prevention programme was implemented, which addresses the topic of gender-based violence. Between 2021 and 2023, there were a total of 22 training courses, with the participation of 16,476 people. In addition, 3,152 inspections have been carried out.

•Between 2021 and 2023, a total of 1,339 awareness-raising workshops were conducted on rights to equality in labour inclusion and gender equality perspectives and sexual diversity, as well as workplace harassment. These workshops were aimed at the public and private sectors and the general public.

•Regarding reparations to victims of sexual violence in the workplace, the Ministry of Labour implements administrative measures to connect direct and indirect victims of violence or femicide with the labour market. From March 2022 to August 2023, 247 people have been hired through the public employment service.

•As of May 2022, the Ministry implemented International Labour Organization Convention No. 190 and Recommendation 206 concerning violence and harassment in the world of work.

•In regard to the prevention of sexual harassment in the educational environment, the Ministry of Education developed a strategy on a participatory approach to the prevention of sexual and gender-based violence, which is a peer-to-peer methodology that allows for the development of skills among students to establish dialogues on sexuality and to provide information for the prevention of gender-based violence and sexual violence. As a result of this strategy, 11,685 people received training in 2021, followed by 64,488 in 2022 and 9,095 in 2023.

•In June 2023, the 2023–2030 National Plan for Psychosocial Risk Prevention was formulated, with the aim of preventing bullying and physical, psychological and sexual violence in the educational environment. Awareness-raising activities reached a total of 2,003,750 people.

•A total of 27,000 copies of the protocols and guidelines for handling situations of violence identified or arising within the education system have been distributed and 13,059 members of the educational community have received training related to the matter.

IV.Follow-up information relating to paragraph 28 (c) of the concluding observations

39.During the period analysed, 5,557 students in vulnerable situations have joined the educational system through facilitation; of these, 2,928 are male and 2,629 are female, i.e. they entered educational institutions without paying for tuition, fees, uniforms or textbooks.

40.The Everyone in the Classroom strategy involves actively searching for children and adolescents who have remained outside the educational system, through activities such as door-to-door searches, fairs and communication campaigns. From November 2022 to October 2023, 23,897 people were identified as being outside the national education system. Of those, 13,851 are now in the system, 6,716 (48.5 per cent) of whom are female and 7,135 (51.5 per cent) are male.

41.A computerized system has been implemented to facilitate enrolment and transfers without the need for identity documents. Using that system, for the 2023–2024 school year 218,850 students enrolled in the Coast-Galapagos system and 132,681 students enrolled in the Sierra-Amazon system in public educational institutions. Likewise, the system has facilitated the transfer of students between public schools, in line with families’ needs over the course of the school year, ensuring their mobility, permanence and continuity.

42.A unique student code number was established for children and adolescents lacking identity documents, to ensure and facilitate access to the national education system. In the 2023–2024 school year, 20,296 students were enrolled under that code number.

43.In order to improve the quality of education, remote tutoring is provided for students who need to reinforce their knowledge of mathematics. A total of 1,934 students benefit from this programme.

44.An investment project to implement Afro-Ecuadorian Ethno-education has been developed in accordance with the constitutional and legal provisions that support cultural and linguistic diversity.

45.The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Human Mobility, in collaboration with the German Agency for International Cooperation, carried out the Un Solo Rumbo (a single direction) campaign. Jointly financed by the European Union, the campaign seeks to eradicate discrimination and violence against the migrant population, especially among children and adolescents, through educational and communicational tools such as literature, theatre and audiovisual and printed resources, focused on combating xenophobia and gender violence, including training in the culture of peace, communication and gender, environmental journalism and non-violent masculinities.

V.Follow-up information relating to paragraph 34 (a) of the concluding observations

46.The Government of Ecuador, in compliance with recommendation 34 (a), decriminalized abortion in situations of rape for all women. This was established through the Organic Act regulating the voluntary interruption of pregnancy for girls, adolescents and women in the event of rape, introduced after a preparatory process that was participatory in all its stages, involving various actors from civil society and the Government. The decision-making process was finalized in the National Assembly and there was a presidential veto.

47.In compliance with judgment No. 34-19-IN/21 and accumulated rulings issued by the Constitutional Court, the Ministry of Public Health produced operational regulations for abortion care, including guidelines for comprehensive care and effective access to voluntary interruption of pregnancy owing to rape, approved in February 2023, and National Sexual and Reproductive Health Plan guidelines for the years 2021, 2022 and 2023, which provide for the monitoring of compliance with current regulations on sexual and reproductive health issues, including the Ministerial Agreement to Regulate Access to Contraceptive Methods, the Handbook for Advisory Services in Sexual and Reproductive Health, the Manual of Sexual and Reproductive Health for Persons with Disabilities and the Clinical Practice Guidelines for Therapeutic Abortion.

48.In compliance with the approved regulations, the Ministry of Public Health provided 93 abortions in cases of pregnancy resulting from rape from 2021 to November 2023 (annex M).

49.To sum up, Ecuador has made notable progress in the implementation of the Committee’s recommendation No. 34 (a). The application of the criminal offence (permitting abortion in cases of rape) has been extended and, in addition, thanks to the work of feminist civil society organizations and forums for the protection of rights established by the Office of the Ombudsperson and the Constitutional Court, the progressive application of this right has been placed on the national agenda.

VI.Challenges

50.Despite the efforts made there are still some remaining challenges, including greater resources for public programmes and policies with impact and results indicators to evaluate progress achieved. In that regard, an appeal is hereby made for international cooperation to continue to support the efforts of the Government in this area.

51.In addition, it is crucial to implement the proposal for a new institutional framework for the Ministry of Women and Human Rights, developed with the support of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, since the current structure was inherited from the Secretariat for Human Rights and has not yet been implemented owing to the government transition.