Data insights are based on population-based household surveys representative at the national and/or sub-national levels.
Shira Miguel is very clear about what perpetuates sexual violence, including the silence that shrouds the issue and makes it so hard for survivors to seek help and receive justice.
When we shy away from talking about women’s and girls’ sexuality – if it’s considered vulgar, or if the words are lacking, she explains, “we’re saying this is a subject you can't touch. It's an entry point for abuse, and at the same time for silence.”
Shira is director of the Nidia White Women’s Movement, which works to promote and protect the human rights of Indigenous and Afro-descendant women and girls in Nicaragua’s North Caribbean Coast Autonomous Region. Named after a young activist from Puerto Cabezas who was murdered in the 1980s, the organization advances gender equality by promoting economic opportunities and access to services, and raising awareness about gender-based violence.
She starts to believe again that despite the abuse, she is a person who has the right to conceive of and envision a better world, in which she does not have to experience any more abuse.
The Nidia White Movement runs the UNFPA-supported La Esperanza shelter in Puerto Cabezas. As the region’s only shelter for survivors of gender-based violence, it houses children, adolescents and women who have experienced sexual, physical or psychological violence. Most clients are adolescent girls from surrounding rural communities.
“Adolescent girls come to stay at the shelter when they are referred by the Ministry of the Family or the police, when some kind of physical violence or sexual violence is reported,” Shira says. The shelter also coordinates with wihtas, or community judges, who work to prevent and resolve conflicts in Indigenous communities in remote, rural regions where court systems are largely inaccessible. These judges are trained to promote and apply Nicaragua’s Law 779, which criminalizes violence against women.
The La Esperanza shelter has seen increased demand throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. In Nicaragua, as elsewhere, the impacts of the crisis – service disruptions, economic strain, social isolation – have exacerbated pre-existing inequalities, vulnerabilities and risks, and have driven an upsurge in gender-based violence.
“We have to recognize that violence is a pandemic, too,” says Lídice Chávez of Voces Caribeñas, a women’s organization mobilizing against gender inequality and racism.
Both pandemics are having a disproportionate impact on Nicaragua’s most vulnerable populations – including women and girls from Afro-descendant and Indigenous communities, especially those in remote and rural areas, as well as LGBTQI+ individuals.
Partnerships with local civil society organizations are critical for addressing gender-based violence in a way that ensures services are tailored to reach these communities and protects their human rights. In Nicaragua, alongside Voces Caribeñas and the Nidia White Women’s Movement, UNFPA partners with the Trans Network of Nicaragua and the Network of Afro-descendent Women of Latin America, the Caribbean and the Diaspora.
These civil society organizations run UNFPA-supported programmes that house and care for survivors, at La Esperanza and other shelters; ensure that child and adolescent survivors continue their education; provide mental health care; facilitate access to justice by providing legal support; and distribute information on both COVID-19 and gender-based violence.
of girls and women aged 15-49 in Nicaragua experienced physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence in 2012
which measures inequality between women and men in three dimensions: reproductive health, empowerment, and labour market participation
The La Esperanza shelter focuses on recovery, providing a place where survivors can feel safe and supported.
“People come here without any hope,” says Rin Leondra Mayorga of the Nidia White Movement. “It’s important that they know there are people who care about them and support them, so they do not feel alone.”
The shelter’s approach emphasizes self-care, personal safety, and rebuilding survivors’ self-esteem and their sense of bodily integrity. Through workshops and dialogues, clients learn about their human rights and how to claim them – for instance, how to report abuse. The shelter also offers activities like art and jewelry-making, and has a school, so that the children and adolescents can keep up with their education while they recover.
While all clients at La Esperanza have experienced sexual, physical or psychological violence, their individual circumstances vary widely, so the treatment they receive to help them recover physically and psychologically is tailored to their needs.
Shira explains that the shelter’s efforts to rebuild survivors’ sense of self-worth – and their ability to stand up for themselves – are a kind of prevention. She wants all survivors to know that, despite the abuse they’ve experienced, “you continue to be human, and your body remains intact. Then that intact body cannot allow itself to be abused again.”
The person who enters here must leave with some hope that he or she can rebuild.
