From Global Platforms to Local Realities: Gender Violence and LGBTQ+ Rights in Marginalized Communities

The 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration offers an opportunity to critically evaluate global advancements in gender equality and LGBTQ+ human rights. Drawing on qualitative, community-engaged research in rural Michoacán, Mexico, and with Latinx populations, this paper explores how colonial legacies, economic marginalization, and globalization have shaped both progress and setbacks in addressing gender-based violence (GBV). My research highlights how intimate partner violence (IPV) survivors, particularly rural women and LGBTQ+ individuals, face systemic barriers in accessing support, limiting the effectiveness of global human rights frameworks.

One key finding shows how formal definitions of IPV, often shaped by Western norms, fail to capture the lived experiences of rural women in Michoacán, where intimate violence is intertwined with economic dependence, social isolation, and local power dynamics. A lack of formal channels for these women to communicate their needs to organizations reveals a critical gap between policy frameworks and local realities. Similarly, LGBTQ+ survivors, particularly trans women, face compounded challenges of economic exploitation and intimate violence, exacerbated by discriminatory legal frameworks and social stigmas.

This paper argues that, while the Beijing Platform for Action has led to progressive legal frameworks, its implementation has been uneven, especially in rural, non-Western contexts. I also examine peer-led, survivor-centered empowerment models that have emerged as alternative avenues for addressing GBV. These grassroots efforts offer promising, culturally relevant approaches to combating IPV but remain underfunded and underrecognized in policy-making arenas.

In reflecting on the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, I call for a more intersectional, context-specific approach to gender equality that centers marginalized survivors, particularly women and LGBTQ+ communities, in underrepresented regions.