Through a public statement, the Opposition Women’s Articulation accused that “we do not have a budget to eradicate violence against women”, so they called for rejecting the project being dealt with in the Chamber of Deputies.
“Minister Monica Zalaquett and her undersecretary, Carolina Cuevas, have said this is a budget focused on economic revival and the prevention of violence against women, in that order. As Women of Opposition we deny that: the budget for economic autonomy did not increase in their home programmes,” the text states.
“The most serious is true of the prevention of violence against women and girls, which will have a budget of 1.21 billion pesos, which is absolutely insufficient for a policy that should be universal and cross-cutting,” they say.
In this context, they add that “the budget is very much to the right with the needs of women in Chile. Women’s Centers are collapsing across the country (…) There is also no concern about increasing foster homes (…) The same goes for Sexual Violence Centers, which are currently only 3 for the whole country.”
The statement further states that the only concrete changes are that the Bee Emprende programme was derived from Sernameg, which until 2020 was implemented in Sercotec. She also accuses a “budget bike” that affects programs such as Women, Associativity and Entrepreneurship that is reduced by 10%, Women, Maternity and Sexuality that drops by 10%.
Funding for the Women’s and Political Participation programme, which is reduced by 20%, also decreases, “a fact that draws attention, especially when a quantitative leap in women’s political participation is expected as a product of parity in the Constitutional Convention,” they say.
For Antonia Orellana, of the Feminist Front for Social Convergence and the Articulation of Opposition Women, “it is urgent that Finance Minister Ignacio Briones and Minister Zalaquett take sexist violence seriously (…) when staff budgets are lowered, it is women who report violence who wait months and female staff who have to juggle to continue responding and are overwhelmed. When not enough funds are implemented to prevent the lives of women and girls are lost.”
