What is OVIM?
The Observatory of Institutional Gender-Based Violence is a civil society platform for political and social advocacy that monitors institutions' compliance with their obligation of due diligence and guarantee of the right to a life free of gender-based violence and discrimination against women, girls, boys and adolescents.
Origin
Born from the project Neighbors for Neighbors from the Associació Hèlia. A community network made up of volunteers who provide support to women survivors of gender-based violence in courts, health centres or administrative offices, among others. This experience has allowed us to identify multiple institutional gender-based violence.
The Observatory is also the result of the historical struggle and years of experience of feminist and/or anti-racist organizations that defend the right of women, girls, boys and adolescents to a life free from institutional sexist violence.
The OVIM is driven by the Associació Hèlia, together with Almena Cooperativa Feminista. The latter is an organisation specialising in public policy, gender-based violence and the construction of collective and participatory processes, in alliance with other entities and women activists from different autonomous communities of the Spanish State.
Are you interested in learning more about Vecinas por Vecinas, the origin of the Observatory of Institutional Gender-Based Violence (OVIM)?
How the OVIM observes
Observe in alliance with feminist organizations with the aim of making visible the structural nature of institutional sexist violence, facilitating the exchange of experiences and learning, in order to transform the actions of public administrations.
It acts as a spokesperson for the work done by other observatories of gender-based violence at the state and international level, with which it establishes synergies and advocacy strategies.
From a four-fold perspective: rights-based, feminist, intersectional and anti-racist.
Information
The human rights perspective is an approach that places human rights at the centre of decision-making, policies, practices, and normative frameworks of institutions and organisations, both at individual and collective levels. This perspective is based on the idea that all people, without discrimination, have universal rights that must be respected, protected and promoted by all actors, including governments, institutions and society in general.
Information
Applying a feminist perspective involves analyzing, designing and acting on policies, projects and practices with a critical eye that questions and challenges gender inequalities, making visible and combating the structures that perpetuate discrimination and oppression towards women and other gender identities. This approach seeks not only equal rights between men and women, but also the transformation of the social, cultural and economic structures that sustain and reproduce oppression.
Information
The intersectional perspective is an approach that allows us to analyze how different forms of discrimination and oppression intersect and intertwine, considering that people do not experience inequality except based on multiple identity factors. For example, gender, race, social class, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, disability and age.
Information
The anti-racist perspective is an approach that seeks to identify, question and dismantle the racist structures, practices and attitudes that produce and perpetuate racial discrimination in society. It goes beyond simply “not being racist” and promotes active and conscious action to eradicate racism in all its forms, including both explicit and structural and systemic racism. It allows us to understand the processes of exclusion that occur around institutional sexist violence experienced by racialized women.
Who is it addressed to?
To all women who experience institutional sexist violence.
Feminist rights organizations are key informants, through their actions, in identifying institutional sexist violence.
Women, lesbians, trans, gypsies, blacks, migrants, the elderly, girls and adolescents, Muslims or members of other religions, with functional diversity, regardless of their socioeconomic status.
To women from civil society organizations, human rights defenders, allies of public institutions and companions.
Public institutions, public service professionals, the media, other human rights observatories, universities and society are also called upon.
Objectives
Facilitate channels
To bring together and document situations of institutional gender-based violence in the Spanish State in order to make a collective impact on guaranteeing rights.
Promote feminist pedagogy
Through actions that promote critical citizen awareness and greater knowledge and social awareness about what institutional sexist violence is and how it is repeated.
Boosting strategies
Political and social advocacy, in a network with women who experience institutional sexist violence, allied organizations and civil society, towards different public institutions, to ensure the right of women, girls, boys and adolescents to a life free of sexist violence.
Mission
To be a space that promotes the right of women, girls, boys and adolescents to live a life free of sexist violence, demanding that public institutions fulfill their obligation not to exercise institutional sexist violence, not to discriminate and to act with due diligence, adopting adequate and effective measures for prevention, support, recovery and comprehensive reparation under conditions of equality.
Vision
To be a reference observatory of institutional sexist violence in the Spanish territory in strategic alliance with other state and international observatories, as well as to be a space for dialogue with public authorities and the media to contribute to guaranteeing the right of women, girls, boys and adolescents to live a life free of sexist violence.
Lines of work
Applied research e Reports newspapers through the collection and systematization of cases of institutional sexist violence.
Outreach of information on the institutional sexist violence and the Observatory, as well as mechanisms, tools and/or procedures for submitting collective complaints to the OVIM.
Collective networking with women, human rights defenders, feminist organizations and movements in civil society.
Visibility of works and proposals of good practices regarding institutional sexist violence carried out by other organizations.
Generation meeting spaces for the knowledge and exchange of experiences.
Strategies for social and political impact annual accompanied by a communication plan.
Accountability spaces periodic and stable with the institutions.