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Chilean women will have the possibility for the first time to draft a new Constitution under equal representation conditions, with the approval of the constituent convention in this Sunday’s plebiscite (25). In one of the greatest achievements of the powerful Chilean feminist movement, Congress approved, in March, an unprecedented law that guarantees gender parity for candidates for the convention that will draft the new constitutional text. With this, the constituent convention will become the first in the world to guarantee an equitable composition between men and women.
In this Sunday’s plebiscite, in addition to approving, with almost 80% of the votes, the drafting of a new Magna Carta to replace the one in force since the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, Chileans also chose the model for drafting the new Constitution. In this case, 79.21% were decided by an exclusive constituent convention, with all the delegates elected by popular vote.
Chilean feminists: ‘Changing the Constitution is symbolic, but what we want is the fall of the patriarchy’
The next step now are the elections scheduled for April 11 next year, in which the 155 constituent delegates in charge of drafting the new text will be elected, a process that should take up to 12 months.
“It has been a feminist claim for years and we would like there to be parity not only in the political system, but also in all sectors, both private and public,” Rosa Montero, president of the Alternative Feminist political party, told AFP.
In a country with low female labor participation (36%) and political representation (less than 20% in the current Congress) there is an expectation about the issues that women can contribute if they participate in the drafting of a new Constitution.
– Women act, reflect and present projects from a different perspective than men. We have, for example, the issue of abortion, which has been in demand for many years and it is men who decide for us. it could be – says Montero.
For Claudio Fuentes, academic of Political Sciences and professor at the Diego Portales University, “having a balanced representation of men and women favors the interests of women, because in general, in the case of Chile, they were the ones who put topics on the agenda. Associated with women In this way, Fuentes adds, “the articulation and pressure of women has made it possible to put certain questions on the public agenda that men in Congress did not ask themselves.”
After years of discussion, it was not until 2017 that Chilean women managed to get Congress to pass a law on therapeutic abortion, which allows the interruption of pregnancy in the event of rape, which endangers the life of the mother or fetal infecibility. Until that year, Chile was one of the few countries in the world that did not allow the termination of pregnancy for any reason. And a few weeks ago, an old regulation that prohibited women – not men – from remarrying until 270 days after the divorce was finalized, which sought to avoid doubts about the paternity of the children.
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In the streets, women celebrate the possibility of being able to write a Constitution for the first time:
– We should not be discussing this at this point in the 21st century, but if the door is opened to the representation of the feminine sphere, it is correct, it is fair and necessary. We have a vision of the country that must be represented – a protester told AFP
In the country where the feminist collective Lastesis was born, chosen by Time magazine as one of the most influential leaders of this 2020 after popularizing her performance “A rapist on the way” about sexist violence in the world, women still have many problems due to solve.
A bill on legal abortion has been presented to Congress, but women also seek to advance priority issues such as equal pay, recognition of domestic work and the right to a life free of violence.
