The rights of women in America, their well-being and participation in politics are the focus of a meeting organized by EL PAÍS, which takes place this Wednesday in Mexico City. Prominent American political figures participate in the event in person or online, such as Claudia Sheinbaum, Head of Government of Mexico City; Francia Márquez, Vice President of Colombia; Yolanda Díaz, second vice president of Spain, all of them in dialogue with Pepa Bueno, director of this newspaper, about the challenges of women in a continent marked by inequality and violence.
“Women do not reach spaces of power to be vases,” Francia Márquez emphasized. “The end of change is not in government offices, the greatest purpose and real power is to be able to guarantee people’s rights,” continued the Vice President of Colombia, the first Afro woman to reach that position in the first Government of the country’s left. “The attacks on me are not only for what I propose but for what I represent, how I dress, how I express myself, how I behave. When I see those classist and racist attacks and aggressions, that is being a deep criticism of the intersectionality of race, class and gender ”, she has summarized.
Claudia Sheinbaum has defended the coincidence between the defense of democracy and the defense of women’s rights. “In the fight for democracy, we fight for the presence of women in the public sphere,” said the head of government of Mexico City. “When we fight for the rights of public education we also fight for the rights of women, when we talk about public health or when we talk about decent work we fight for the rights of women”, she has exemplified.
The meeting, which is sponsored by Iberdrola México and Telefónica, takes place at the National Museum of Anthropology starting at eight in the morning and includes various exhibitions and discussion tables such as the participation of women in democracy, their political rights and their representation in public life. Participating in this table are Michelle Bachelet, former president of Chile; María Emma Mejía, former Secretary General of UNASUR; Eleonora Caroit, French deputy; Marcela Aguiñaga, perfect of the provincial government of Guayas, in Ecuador; and Myriam Méndez, coordinator of Valiente es Dialogar and former director of the Ford Foundation. This table is moderated by the journalist for W Radio and columnist for EL PAÍS, Gabriela Warkentin.
In a region where 2022 closed with more than 4,000 women victims of femicide, the meeting analyzes the conditions in which they can access justice, because most of these crimes also go unpunished. Of all the violent deaths of women, only between 30% and 35% are classified as femicides by the authorities, according to the National Observatory on Feminicide of Mexico, a trend that is replicated in other countries in the region. Beatriz Argimón, Vice President of Uruguay; Ernestina Godoy, Attorney General of Mexico City; and Ana María Salazar, former deputy assistant secretary of the Pentagon.
Sustainable development and the role of women after the covid-19 pandemic is also the subject of analysis at a round table in which Aurora Vergara, Minister of Education of Colombia; Rosa Junquera, director of sustainability at PRISA; Aimée Sentmat de Grimaldo, president of Banistmo, in Panama; and María Noel Vaeza, regional director of UN Women. After the event, which is also organized by PRISA Media, the Government of Mexico City and UN Women, the participants will visit two of Claudia Sheinbaum’s flagship projects in the Mexican capital: the Cablebús that runs through Iztapalapa, one of the largest delegations from Mexico City, and PILARES, a youth reintegration project through culture.
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