Measuring firearms possession with a gender perspective

On May 17th, the Centre of Excellence in Statistical Information on Government, Crime, Victimization and Justice (CoE) participated in the first session of the “Webinar Series on Gender and Small Arms Control for regional and sub-regional organizations” organized by the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA).

The CoE spoke about an innovative tool it developed together with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) headquarters that allows countries in the region to collect relevant information on firearms: Section E: Possession of firearms of the Latin American and Caribbean Crime Victimization Survey Initiative (LACSI).

Section E helps to measure the prevalence of presence of firearms in a territory, the level of acceptance of firearms-related behaviours and the feeling of security, among other issues. This tool includes a gender perspective and allows the information collected to be disaggregated by sex in order to carry out a more detailed analysis of criminal phenomena.

During his presentation, the Centre of Excellence spoke about the international mandate on firearms and Target 16.4 of the 2030 Agenda “Significantly reduce illicit financial and arms flows, strengthen the recovery and return of stolen assets and combat all forms of organized crime”. The CoE also spoke about the structure of Section E and the challenges of measuring firearms-related phenomena. The experiences of the two countries in the region that implemented this Section in their Crime Victimization Surveys were presented at the end: Jamaica and Saint Lucia.

For more information on the results of the Jamaica and St. Lucia surveys, visit our Atlas of Victimization Surveys: /index.php/mapa-2/