Latinas, Culture and Human Rights: A Model for Making Change, Saving Soul

This article reviews the progress made in the human rights situation of Latin American women both within Latin America and in the United States. The piece begins with a discussion of the intersections of race and sex discrimination in the Latina experience and assesses the protection offered by international race and sex-based instruments. Next, an overview is presented of the Inter-American Human Rights system’s jurisprudence in relation to women’s rights and the system’s effects in fostering changes in domestic laws and constitutions. It is argued that while the system has been successful in many respects, discrimination in law persists throughout the Americas. The article concludes by proposing reforms that include expanding the definition of violence to include economic violence and posing a number of critical queries in response to cultural defenses of discriminatory laws.