Among the 11,000 non-profit organizations estimated to be on the island, only 16 provide counseling and psychological services to women, seven are shelters for survivors of gender-based violence, 11 provide outpatient services to survivors of gender-based violence, and only eight provide direct services to the LGBTTQ + community.
The need for services to serve women on the island is great, as is the need to obtain resources to finance them, highlighted planner Marta Elsa Fernández, who was head of the Administration of Socioeconomic Development of the Family (Adsef) in 2013. to 2016.
Women represent 52.1% of the population of Puerto Rico, but only make up 32% of the workforce, said the lawyer and former attorney for Women María Dolores Fernós. Some 962,000 women are classified as out of the workforce, half of whom identified as housewives, Fernós said. Fernández pointed out that 47.1% of women live below the federal poverty level.
