Womens rights

The 1992 Constitution of Paraguay upholds the principle of equality for all individuals and prohibits discrimination, and the government claims to have removed most of the discriminatory clauses in the country’s existing legislation. Feminist organisations conducted significant awareness-raising campaigns during the 1990s, which helped develop a legal and institutional framework to guarantee the protection of women’s rights.

Family Code: 

Overall, Paraguay’s Family Code provides a reasonable degree of protection for women. However, the incidence of early marriage remains quite high. The legal age for marriage is 16 years for both men and women, and a 2004 United Nations report estimated that 17 per cent of girls between 15 and 19 years of age were married, divorced or widowed.
Polygamy is prohibited by law in Paraguay.
According to Paraguay’s new Civil Code, men and women have the same rights and responsibilities within the home, particularly in relation to parental authority.
Men and women in Paraguay have equal legal rights to inheritance.

Physical Integrity: 

Laws to protect the physical integrity of women in Paraguay are weak. Violence against women is the main infringement of women’s rights in the country. A law passed in 2000 classifies domestic violence as a crime, but only when it is physical violence; the law does not specifically recognise psychological and economic abuse. Moreover, violence must be habitual before legal proceedings can be initiated against the offender.
There is no evidence to indicate that female genital mutilation is practised in Paraguay, nor does it appear to be a country of concern in relation to missing women.