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This article analyzes Nicaragua as a case study for exploring the ways in which the fight against gender violence was legitimized through a succession of juridical contradictions, on an international, Latin-American, and local scale. It shows that the contradiction between the preservation of the moral order and the protection of sexual integrity was a crucial component of the parliamentary debates on Penal code reform. It brings into focus the tension between the preservation of traditional family values or “familialism,” and female individuation, which eventually resulted in the criminalization of domestic violence. Lastly, it points to the paradoxical coexistence of “integral laws” on gender violence on the one hand, and legally compulsory motherhood on the other, through the criminalization of abortion. This contradiction takes place in a context of authoritarian political power in today’s Nicaragua.