This is how women leaders impact Latin American politics

Every day, across latitudes, women “have to present evidence that political representation matters,” said Silvana Koch-Mehrin, president and founder of Women Political Leaders (WPL).

This organization, together with the Global Institute for Women's Leadership and the Westminster Foundation for Democracy and Professor Nam Kyu Kim, dedicated itself to documenting how women leaders are reshaping the nature of politics, incorporating issues and problems that were previously perceived as “non-priority” issues, such as gender violence and reproductive health, among other topics.

The report concluded, first, that the greater the representation of women in cabinets and legislatures, the more women are on equal legal and economic footing;

also that there is a link between women's political leadership and legislation against gender violence, “which demonstrates that the implementation of legislation on gender violence is positively influenced by female political leadership”;

and, finally, that as public policymakers, women prioritize issue areas that benefit the most vulnerable in society through health care, well-being, food security and education.

Every 8-M we say that there is still a long way to go, because as the research states, only if representation is significant (ideally equal), “will we achieve legal equality of economic opportunities and unlock the benefits and economic improvements associated with this diversity (verify).”

On this occasion, in Leaders of Latin America, some concrete examples in the region that show that representation does matter.

Janja Lula da Silva and equal pay

“Every two minutes, five women are attacked in Brazil,” a poster reminds the thousands of passers-by who pass through the central bus station in Brasilia every day.

“Violence against women has no excuse, it has a law,” says another poster.

He refers to the main legal norm to combat feminicide in this country.

Approved unanimously in 2006, it is called the Maria da Penha law, named in honor of a Brazilian woman who survived a case of cruel gender violence like few others.

It included shooting her in the back that left her in a wheelchair and an attempt to electrocute her in the shower.

Janja da Silva, in 2023 at the BRICS summit.

Gianluigi Guercia (AP)

But the woman with the most power to push the feminist agenda right now is not a minister or parliamentarian but the wife of the president, Janja Lula da Silva.

She often remembers the flagrant absence of women in public spheres – also the result of decisions made by her husband – and promoted the law on equal pay between men and women, approved in 2023 and which now has to be implemented.

Brazil is at the bottom of the region in terms of female parliamentarians.

They are only 17%, but sometimes they function as a lobby.

Among the priorities for this year, the regulation of the work of women with breast cancer, the rights of women who suffer spontaneous abortions or maternity leave for athletes.

Neither the courts nor Congress have advanced plans to decriminalize abortion anytime soon.

And there are other cases such as that of Councilor Erika Hilton, in the São Paulo legislature, who promoted the Fund to Fight Hunger to provide access to decent levels of subsistence, nutrition and food security in this city.

In 2022 the fund was created and is now in the structuring process.

Colombia serves its caregivers

Colombia is a country of mothers who assume household responsibilities alone.

According to official figures, there are 7 million people (6 million of them women) who do care work without any type of remuneration.

They take care of homes, take care of children or adults with disabilities.

In total there are 16 million people who require daily care for their vital development.

That is why for more than a decade people have been talking about the need for a National Care System.

The participation of women in politics such as former congresswoman Angela María Robledo or the mayor of Bogotá, Claudia López and now the vice president, Francia Márquez have at different times promoted this demand from many other women in broad areas of society.

Kimberly León, with her daughter and nephew at the street stall she runs.Diego Cuevas

In the case of Bogotá, the capital has obtained recognition for the so-called Apples of Care, a pioneering program that López developed, which consists of serving women who care for others.

These are 20 help centers for women where they can train, educate themselves or have psychological therapy, among other things, while they wash their clothes or take care of their children.

The plan is maintained in the current administration and has the potential to be replicable and in cities such as Montevideo (Uruguay), there has been talk of installing laundries for female caregivers.

Natalia Moreno led that plan in Bogotá and is now the manager of the National Care System, a novelty in the country.

With the creation of the Ministry of Equality, headed by Vice President Francia Márquez, who has also been a caregiver - she worked as a domestic worker at one stage of her life - the care system was included in the National Development Plan.

Furthermore, in Congress they supported a Law that gives a legal framework to this National System.

“Colombia is, after Uruguay, the second country in Latin America that implements a system like this with a law that forces the Government to implement it,” says Moreno.

The experience of Bogotá is, of course, a starting point, but the national plan addresses other realities where there is not as much infrastructure as in the capital.

Already with the legal framework, the national system - which is in the design phase - includes 140 actions.

Among them, that the citizen income (a type of subsidy given to the most vulnerable) is focused on caregivers;

while other measures aim to support domestic workers so that they fulfill their labor rights, formalization of community mothers, and complex community care programs.

To do this they also have another woman as an ally, the Minister of Labor, Gloria Inés Ramírez.

For now, the Care Directorate has been created, a specific unit for these issues that, until now, were transversal in different ministries and therefore “for everyone and no one.”

And they are advancing on the care route, a series of expandable vehicles or buses that carry psychological care services or telecommunications services for caregivers in very remote and rural areas.

'Antonia Law': guarantee for victims of sexual crimes in Chile

Antonia Barra committed suicide at the age of 21, three weeks after Martín Pradenas, 28, raped her. The young woman reported the aggressor in 2019, who is now convicted.

The case is symbolic in the Chilean feminist struggle and gave rise to the so-called Antonia Law.

The regulations enacted in December 2022 establish procedural guarantees for victims of sexual crimes, protect their rights and prevent their re-victimization.

It also includes two new criminal types: induction to suicide and feminicide suicide.

To calculate the sentence of the aggressor, for example, the physical and mental impact of the victim is considered.

Deputies Maite Orisini and Gael Yeomans, from the Frente Amplio, the formation of President Gabriel Boric, presented the legislative initiative that had the transversal support of the different political parties and was approved unanimously in the Senate.

The

Antonia Law

establishes that the person who “on the occasion of previous acts constituting gender violence, committed by him against the victim, causes the suicide of a woman, will be punished with a maximum sentence of minor imprisonment. major prison in its minimum degree as the author of femicidal suicide.”

Two decades ago, in the Chilean Congress, women like Michelle Bachelet, who was the country's first president, approved the daycare law that requires companies with more than 19 workers to provide a daycare center until the child is two years old.

The 'Malena Law' and the struggle of all the women attacked with acid in Mexico

The Mexican saxophonist María Elena Ríos experienced an acid attack in 2019 at the request of her previous partner, a powerful politician and gas station businessman from Oaxaca.

Since then, her fight to get justice for her has joined that of hundreds of women who, like her, were attacked with some corrosive substance on the body and face.

However, until a year ago, acid attacks in Mexico were considered only an aggravating factor in a crime of injury, which meant reduced sentences for their perpetrators.

The saxophonist María Elena Ríos, in 2022. Andrea Murcia Monsivais (Cuartoscuro)

In the last decade it has been shown that attacks with acid or other substances are closely related to sexist violence in the country.

85% of these attacks in Mexico were committed by a man, partner or ex-partner of the victims, according to data from the Carmen Sánchez Foundation.

First, because of how easy and cheap it is to get these substances on the market, and second, because of the enormous damage they cause to the victims.

This year, the local Congress of Mexico City approved a change in its legislation which they named the

Malena Law

- in honor of the saxophonist - which contemplates sentences of up to 12 years in prison, with the possibility of extending them up to 30 years if The attack causes serious injuries and is considered attempted feminicide.

The first State to modify the law was Puebla, in March 2023. Then came Baja California, Quintana Roo, Colima and Campeche, which legislated in the same sense.

The rest of the country continues to consider acid attacks as a minor aggression, including Oaxaca, where María Elena Ríos is from.

Till March last year, 39 women suffered acid attacks in the country.

However, these data only reflect part of the problem because there is no official information or a formal count by the authorities.

NGOs are the only ones that do this task.

In 2022, for example, the Carmen Sánchez Foundation recorded another 105 attacks with other types of substances, such as alcohol or gasoline, of which there was only a formal complaint to the police on 28 occasions.

Faced with these events and the abandonment of the State, victims and activists such as María Elena Ríos herself, Carmen Sánchez, Esmeralda Millán or Elisa Xolalpa, among many others, have continued fighting for the law to change.

Thanks to them, “acid violence,” as it is now called, is included in the Penal Code and the Law on Women's Access to a Life Free of Violence.

The case of María Elena Ríos remains stuck in the courts and the trial against her attacker has not yet been held.

If this happens, the

Malena Law

could not be applied to her case because it was prior to its approval and because Oaxaca still does not recognize this type of violence in its Penal Code.

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