Gender violence has become a worrying issue in Latin America, not only because of its social and Human impact, but because it has an economic cost too. The economic cost of gender violence in Latin America represents between 1% and 4% of the Latin America's GDP, according to a recent report of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

On the other side, scarcity of data concerning gender violence is also a problem in Latin America in this will only change when all long term measures to change the sexist culture rooted in many Latin-American countries, that do not encourage women to report violence abuses in fear of being marginalized.  This has to change: “14 of the 25 top countries in the world with a highest rate of femicides are in Latin America”, says the report.

Over  50% of Bolivia women and more than 35% of Peru women have suffered some kind of aggression from their couples.  Physical violence is highest in Andine region, followed by Central America and the Caribbean.

As reported today in Spanish newspaper El Mundo