Late of contrasts. While the resignation Minister of Women and Gender Equity, Isabel Plá, noted after finalizing her departure from the cabinet that during her management in the Government the resignation Minister of Women and Gender Equity, Isabel Plá, “we took substantive steps” and “led changes”, in opposition and the feminist movement celebrated their departure.
“I want first to publicly thank President Sebastián Piñera for his trust, for inviting me to be part of his cabinet and especially to work for a cause as just and as urgent as the changes That Chileanwomen are demanding for equal rights and also for full recognition of her dignity,” the minister said. Then Plá noted that “we have said it several times, and the President said it last Sunday, on March 8, Chile has a debt still outstanding with the Chileans, and in these years we advanced, we took very important substantive steps to shorten gaps, we enacted 4 new laws and we are sure that sooner rather than later those changes that are already underway will affect the quality of life of Chileans”, adding that they feel that they “fulfilled a cycle”.
Criticism of its management
However, Plá’s positive self-assessment of his management contrasts with the gaze of his detractors. Alondra Carrillo, spokesperson for Coordinator 8M, commented that the resignation of the minister “after being demanded by the feminist movement to be complicit in the violations of human rights and of the political and sexual violence employed against those who we have mobilized and accountable in the deinstitutionalization of public policies on gender-based violence, it is certainly an achievement of the feminist movement.”
Since the opposition, socialist MEP Maya Fernandez said that “everything would have been very different if in her tenure in the ministry she had played her self to really defend women especially when they suffered violence and aggression in recent months. His silence will be the most remembered.”
In the same tone, DEPUTY DR Maite Orsini stated that “the resignation of Minister Plá is not only confirmation that her silence was complicit in the sexual political violence that women suffered in the awakening of Chile, but of Piñera’s inability to lead these Times. Women during this government have been unprotected.”
Fernandez recalled that Plá “didn’t play it for parity either” in the constituent process that was passed in Congress. “During the debate and parity votes in the constituent process, he was totally absent. She never went to committees and votes knowing that it was a priority issue for us women,” said the former president of the Chamber of Deputies.
For its part, the Association of Feminist Lawyers (Abofem) stated that “this resignation confirms our initial diagnosis: its management has resulted in the absolute abandonment of women in the country”.
“We have repeatedly pointed out that the highest representative of women in this field, former Minister Plá, has deepened a gap in inequality that persists in state structures. Since the Association of Feminist Lawyers we have assumed, in the absence of the state apparatus, part of this work of protection and fight for the guarantee of our rights, while the ministry wastes its resources and precarious public policies” they added.
However, the replacement is also met with criticism from the feminist world. “That his replacement is Carolina Cuevas who has been undersecretary all this time establishes a line of continuity that we find regrettable. The policy of the ministry of women embodied in Minister Isabel Plá is the one that we have denounced and if that continuity is carried out by Carolina Cuevas we will continue to demand her resignation there should be a profound transformation and not just a rotation of faces with the same policy behind it,” said The 8M Coordinator’s spokeswoman.
In the meantime, from Abofem they stated that “in the face of the appointment of the new representative of the State in this matter we recall, once again, that this portfolio arose as a result of the historical struggle of the Feminist Movement, so that it can do no less than to host our demands and work on the basis of the allegations we have made repeatedly.”
