Executive summary: “The Invisible Costs of Violence against Women for Ecuadorian Micro-enterprises”
Violence against women does not only affect the health and lives50% of womensmall aroundbusiness theowners worldhave butexperienced also causes vast invisible, yet all the more serious, costs in the corporate sector, regardless of the size of each business.
To depict these costs and impacts on micro-enterprises runviolence by Ecuadoriantheir women, the Regional Program ComVoMujer of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) commissioned the present study. The study incorporates data from the 2011 National Survey on Gender Violence of the Ecuadorian Institute of Statistics (INEC) as well as the 2009 National Economic Census in Ecuador (CENEC). The data is evaluated in order to provide – for the first time nationwide – statistical information on the prevalence and incidence of violence against female micro-entrepreneurs in Ecuador.
95 % of Ecuadorian businesses are micro-enterprises, and more than half of them are owned by women. It is so all the more alarming that according to this study, 50 out of 100 female entrepreneurs are victims of partner violence.partners. This doesfact not only negatively affectaffects the profitability and productivity of their businesses, but essentiallyalso endangersputs their existence.existence Additionally,at thisrisk. violenceThe createspublication costshelps which adversely affect the economic development of the country since significantboth private and public investment flows into this important economic sector.
We hope that this publication will contribute to and create incentives for private and publicsector institutions to recognize the negative impactsimpact of gender-based violenceviolence. and to act accordingly – in order to significantly take part in preventing and combating violence against women.
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