The budget of expenditures for the equality of men and women planned for next year will have 75% more resources than in 2021, but the increase is concentrated in the priority social programs of this administration, such as Pension for the Elderly, Sembrando Vida or the Benito Juárez scholarships, while the actions directed towards women to reduce the gender gap will have cuts.
The deputies approved a budget of 233 thousand 732 million pesos for 2022, while in 2021 it had 133 thousand 119 million pesos for the “Transversal Annex of Expenditures for Equality between Women and Men (Annex 13)”, created in 2008 to finance programs and strategic actions to protect and guarantee the rights of women.
In 2008 it started with 12 billion and year after year it was increasing until reaching 33 billion in 2017. As of 2018, the most significant increases occurred, but because the resources of social programs were added, but not in actions that directly affect women such as maternal and reproductive health or attention to violence.
Read more | The Annex for Equality between Women and Men in the PPEF 2022 is irrelevant
The Ministry of Welfare will have the largest allocation in Annex 13 with 139 billion pesos, but 91% of this will go to the pension for the elderly. While in the Ministry of Public Education, 80% of the 54 billion labeled will be for the Benito Juárez Scholarship program, according to an analysis by Fundar.
“They confuse womenism with the budget with a gender perspective and this budget does not have a gender perspective, because it does not seek to reduce the inequality gap, it is absolutely clientelistic. They only see us women as possible voters and that’s where the budget is headed,” warns Martha Tagle, former deputy and political consultant in an interview with Political Animal.
In the budget approved this weekend, the Support Program for specialized shelters for women victims of gender violence, their children, in charge of the National Institute of Social Development (Indesol), will have 420 million pesos, but barely represents an increase of 0.3%.
The Support Program for the Welfare of Children, Children of Working Mothers that replaced the children’s stays, will have 2,684 million pesos, a reduction of 3.6%, and barely represents 1.9% of the budget for the Secretariat of Welfare. The Support Program for Women’s Instances in the Federal Entities (PAIMEF) will have 288 million pesos, just 0.2% more than in 2021.
Although in previous six-year terms the resources, although labeled, were insufficient, in the current administration “it is ending up dismantling public policy. Not only in the discourse, but also in the facts, we are not relevant to this government because they are not addressing the problems that women face,” says Tagle.
Meanwhile, the organizations CEJIL, Equality Now, Colectiva Ciudad y Gobierno, Raíces y Mujeres Impulsando la Igualdad, issued a statement regarding the budget of Annex 13, which is the result of the efforts of the feminist movement and civil society, among other reasons, because it promotes public investment to raise the quality of life of women and girls, to force the State to design and implement programs for equality and non-violence.
However, “we especially regret the lack of sensitivity of the 2022 Economic Package in relation to the critical situation of gender-based violence that the country is going through. Last August, the record of femicidal violence was broken since it has been recorded; and emergency calls for incidents related to sexual violence also exceeded the average of recent months,” they say in their position.
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