This volume addresses the question of why issues of rights and democracy have become so central to women's movements in post-transition Latin America. As important actors in the stuggle for democracy, women's movements moved from being an oppositional force to one forging new strategies to promote gender justice. The international attention focused on human rights in the 1990s, along with the recognition accorded to women's rights, provided a favourable opportunity for women's movements to advance ideas of inclusive citizenship and to broaden the meaning of rights. The nine country-based chapters assess critically the innovative strategies pursued by Latin American women's movements in their struggle to incorporate rights into the different domains of social and poltical life. Together they cover a range of countries and political contexts, analysing specific bodies of rights and campaigns for legal reform: these include rightrs of political representation, labour rights, reproductive rights, socioeconomic rights, rights and ethnicity, and rights to protection against domestic violence.

This volume assesses one of the most important developments in contemporary Latin American women's movements: the engagement with rights-based discourses. Organised women have played a central role in the continued struggle for democracy in the region and with it gender justice. The foregrounding of human rights, and within them the recognition of women's rights, has offered women a strategic advantage in pursuing their goals of an inclusive citizenship. The country-based chapters analyse specific bodies of rights: rights and representation, domestic violence, labour rights, reproductive rights, legal advocacy, socio-economic rights, rights and ethnicity, and rights, the state and autonomy.