Regional Network for Access to Justice in Latin America and the Caribbean

The Regional Network for Access to Justice brings together more than 12 civil society organisations, as well as independent experts, justice operators (prosecutors, judges and judicial personnel), human rights defenders and survivors from Latin America and the Caribbean, united to promote the implementation of international human rights standards on sexual violence and access to justice in the region.

Adopting a feminist, intersectional, and intersectoral perspective, the Network recognises significant challenges despite regulatory progress in the region. Deep structural gaps persist, exacerbated by high levels of impunity, re-victimising practices, and gender stereotypes within judicial systems. These issues disproportionately affect girls and adolescents, particularly those in rural areas, as well as those who are of African descent, Indigenous, living with disabilities, with diverse sexual orientations and gender identities, or experiencing poverty.

What does the Network do?

The Network performs several core functions to strengthen the regional response to sexual violence.

Research and analysis

It monitors the fulfilment of State commitments, identifies promising practices and common obstacles, and generates comparative evidence to inform public policies and legal frameworks. The Network also develops technical analyses, tools, and joint statements on emerging issues, ensuring its work is timely and evidence-based.

Advocacy and system change

The Network submits expert opinions (ie. amicus curiae) to national and international courts and actively participates in regional and international human rights forums. Through this collective work, it promotes the adoption of legal frameworks and protocols that align with international standards and contributes to consolidating regional coordination among different justice sector stakeholders. Ultimately, its objective is to drive concrete changes in laws, public policies, and institutional practices to guarantee effective access to justice and prevent rollbacks in the protection of rights for women, adolescents, and girls who are survivors of sexual violence.

Rollbacks on the rights of women, adolescents, and girls in LAC

In Latin America and the Caribbean, essential public policies and institutional frameworks dedicated to gender equality are actively being undermined. This weakening is visible in different countries of the region through several actions:

• Defunding of gender programs in several countries.
• Elimination or censorship of educational content with a rights perspective.
• Restriction of civil society participation through administrative obstacles, tax penalties, or exclusion from key dialogue spaces.

Simultaneously, the region is facing an alarming surge of disinformation campaigns and anti-rights discourses. These narratives aggressively seek to roll back feminist advances by:

• Regressively reinterpreting international standards.
• Legitimising unsubstantiated concepts like the so-called “parental alienation syndrome” or alleged “false accusations.”
• Distorting the reality of sexual violence and, consequently, damaging the credibility of survivors.

This context of regression and attack makes the Network’s work even more critical and urgent. In the face of these rollbacks, the Network takes a decisive stance to:

• Reaffirm international human rights standards.
• Highlight barriers to accessing justice using robust evidence, data, and testimonies.
• Defend the progress that has already been made.

Its goal is to help ensure that the issue of sexual violence, and the State’s fundamental obligation to guarantee justice, occupies a central place on public agendas and is not displaced or silenced by regressive narratives.

Historical background: The origin of the Network

The Network’s origins trace back to November 2023, when a diverse group of activists, judges, prosecutors, litigators, human rights experts, and survivors converged in Cartagena, Colombia. The gathering served to exchange knowledge, identify common challenges, and define joint actions.

This meeting generated a clear need: to establish a regional body focused specifically on the practical implementation of international standards on sexual violence and access to justice. It was from this imperative that the Regional Network for Access to Justice in Latin America and the Caribbean was born, officially promoted by Equality Now.

Since its founding, the Network has rapidly developed several key initiatives to strengthen access to justice in the region:

• Regional Research: Conducted research across 11 countries (Puerto Rico, Mexico, Guatemala, Panama, Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, and Argentina) to map both the barriers and advances in access to justice.
• Capacity Building: Hosted seminars for network members focused on exchanging experiences and promising practices regarding emerging issues, such as reparations, anti-rights discourses, investigation, and early evidence.
• Protocol Validation: Contributed to the validation of regional protocols and tools designed specifically for justice operators.
• Video podcast JUSTAS: Produced the video podcast JUSTAS, the journey of survivors, in collaboration with Fundación Thelma Fardín, which highlights the obstacles and lessons learned by survivors in their pursuit of justice.

In November 2025, the Network held its second in-person intersectoral meeting in Bogotá, which brought members together for three days. The objectives of the meeting were:

• Standards Analysis: To analyse the progress and challenges in implementing international standards on sexual violence, with special attention to the Angulo Losada vs. Bolivia Case from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which set a key precedent for the region.
• Strategic Planning: To develop a joint work plan for the upcoming periods.
• Regional Advocacy: To sign a position statement in preparation for CSW 70 (Commission on the Status of Women), whose central theme is “guaranteeing and strengthening access to justice for all women and girls, promoting inclusive and equitable legal systems, eliminating discriminatory laws, policies and practices, and tackling structural barriers.”

Currently, the Network collaborates with national civil society organisations and with affiliated regional networks such as: CLADEM Regional, the Specialized Gender Network (REG) of the AIAMP, and the network of survivors Resilientes e Inquebrantables. This collaboration is a collective process open to the integration of other networks and initiatives.