MAY 23, 2018

Women's Agenda: Government introduces measures to promote gender equity

President Sebastián Piñera announced several measures the government will take to promote the Women's Agenda, notably a constitutional reform to "guarantee full equality of rights and obligations between men and women."

On Wednesday, President Sebastián Piñera, who was accompanied by First Lady Cecilia Morel and Minister of Women and Gender Equity Isabel Plá, presented a series of initiatives aimed at promoting gender equity in the public and private sectors.

“Today, before all who are here and all of my fellow citizens, I want to strongly and clearly express our government's firm commitment to decisively and urgently move forward so that, while respecting our wonderful differences, we can progress towards a society in which men and women have the same rights, obligations, opportunities and dignity,” the President said at La Moneda Palace.

Measures

The 12 measures announced by President Piñera are:

1. The government will sponsor a reform of Article 1 on the Constitution's institutional framework to establish the government's duty to promote and guarantee full equality of rights, obligations and dignity between men and women and to prevent all forms of abuse or arbitrary discrimination against women.

2. Allforms of discrimination contained in the country's laws will be eliminated. In this context, the most urgent bills are the following:

a. A bill that penalizes domestic abuse in situations where the couple is not married, introduced during President Piñera's first administration.
b. A bill that establishes full equality of rights between men and women in management of community assets through marriage and personal property, which was also presented during President Piñera's first term.
c. A bill that ensures and guarantees maternity leave for members of the armed forces and law enforcement agencies.

The government will also promote:
a. A bill to end the legal requirement that a woman wait at least 270 days to remarry after the dissolution of a marriage due to divorce, annulment or death.
b. A bill that establishes the right to infant care for all children whose mothers and fathers work and do not have access to such care in order to achieve universal infant care coverage for all mothers with an employment contract. The cost of this benefit will be shared by all workers, thus ending discrimination that results in the cost of such care falling solely on female workers.
c. A bill that establishes the right of women to breastfeed their children anywhere.
d. Prioritization of a bill on the right of women to live a life free of violence, which was introduced by the previous government.


3. A new presidential directive will be issued for government workthat promotes and guarantees what will be incorporated into the Constitution in order to guarantee equality of rights between men and women and rigorous provisions in matters of prevention, reporting, investigation and sanctioning of all types of abuse, sexual or workplace harassment, discrimination and mistreatment. This directive also will require implementation of effective prevention mechanisms and annual accountability reports.

4. The government will enact the Law on Public Universities, which extends the prevention and prohibition of such acts and regulates the relationship between professors and students as well as relationships within each group.

5. The Education Ministry will prepare a technical assistance and monitoring plan for universities, professional institutes, technical training centers and K-12 schools to promote and ensure inclusion in their regulations of the highest standards for coexistence, protocols for preventing abuse, harassment, discrimination and mistreatment, and setting effective procedures for reporting, investigating and sanctioning such conduct.

6. The Ministry of Women and Gender Equity and the Ministry of the Interior and Public Security and the Defense Ministry will develop a Human Rights Plan, which will include as one of its central pillars the prohibition of arbitrary discrimination against women in our armed forces and law enforcement agencies.

7. The government will promote a reform of the private health care systemto end unjustified price differences in health plansthat discriminate against women, and particularly women of childbearing age.

8. The government will push for greater female participation in senior positions in the public sector, private sector and academia, as well as greater participation of women in science and technology careers and graduate programs.

9. There will be an expansion of coverage of the 4 to 7 programto better ensure care for children after the regular school day in order to facilitate women's participation in the labor market.

10. Improvements will be made to protocols in the prison system and its coordination with health services to ensure the dignity of incarcerated women who are pregnant.

11. The government will strengthen assisted reproduction therapies and infertility treatments to promote and support those seeking to become parents.

12. The government will assist women in collecting child support owed to them.