A Twist on Stereotype Analysis: Combined Stereotype

Abstract

The analysis of stereotypes in the productions of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (hereinafter, the IACourtHR) and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (hereinafter, IACHR) has contributed to strengthening the approach of material equality, making visible the de facto position in where individuals or groups are placed by an unequal distribution of power that implies strong structural disadvantages that aggravate and make violations of their rights more frequent. The IACourtHR expanded its toolbox for this, extending the equality approach to the material conception to glimpse the structural asymmetry, the situation of vulnerability, the intersectional and differentiated, in which certain populations live or are placed. However, their inclusion does not mean that reconstructive methodologies of inter-American judicial practice have been developed yet that, on the one hand, show the lights and shadows of inter-American jurisprudence and, on the other hand, provide victims with tools to attack violations of their rights. Along these lines, we argue that this inter-American toolbox must include the combined stereotype analysis. To demonstrate its practical relevance, we take as a reference the case decided by the IACourtHR, Ramírez Escobar et al. v Guatemala, which reports on the arbitrary separation of two siblings from their family of origin through irregular international adoption processes that are inserted in a social and normative context of discriminatory practices, especially with respect to women that are heads of households who live in a situation of poverty.