Parity in government: only five women remain in 18 ministries – Explica

First ministerial cabinet of Ivn Duque in 2018 / Presidency of Colombia

Since the presidential campaign, the now president Ivn Duque announced that he was going to work, for the first time, with a joint cabinet, that is, where half (or even more) were women, a commitment that he fulfilled when he appointed eight within his ministries : Culture, Justice, ICT, Education, Mines, Labor, Transportation and Interior, the latter one of the most important. But in February 2020, his cabinet became the opposite.

As La Silla Vaca analyzed it, this was one of the commitments that Duque repeated the most in the campaign, which Today it could be classified as a lie since of those eight that started, only two remain (ngela Mara Orozco in Transportation and Mara Victoria Angulo in Education). According to the Quota Law cited by the media, women should occupy at least 30 percent of the positions, but today they represent 27.78 percent of these. With the vice president and Duke himself, the quota would be 30 percent closed.

In January 2020, the president appointed Mabel Torres as head of the newly inaugurated Ministry of Science and thus women became a majority in the cabinet. For the first time in the history of the country, 10 of the 18 most important positions were led by a woman. La Silla recalls that even the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights congratulated Duque on the cabinet at the beginning of his term.

But the bliss didnt last long: in February of last year, Duque lowered the quota to nine when he sent Alicia Arango to the Interior Ministry and replaced ngel Custodio Cabrera in the Ministry of Labor, all this after the resignation of Nancy Patricia Gutirrez. But it was in June, four months later, when the parity ended. Duque appointed Diego Mesa as a replacement for Mara Fernanda Surez in the Ministry of Mines, leaving the list of women at eight and, later, leaving the cabinet with seven women when he changed the current Attorney General and then Chief of Justice, Margarita Cabello, by Wilson Ruiz.

But it didnt stop there. In December 2020, Alicia Arango left the Interior Ministry, replaced by her vice minister, Daniel Palacios, and Carmen Vsquez from the Ministry of Culture, who handed over her position to Felipe Buitrago. Currently, as of February 2020, there are only five female ministers, of 10 that came to be, while men occupy 13 headquarters.

La Silla also brought up that Duques idea of having permanent ministers throughout his term was not fulfilled with the 14 changes he has made and taking into account that of the 18 that started only five continue: Alberto Carrasquilla, in the Treasury and to whom the opposition has tried several times to remove from office; Jos Manuel Restrepo in Commerce, Jonathan Malagn in Housing and who accused of having plagiarized his thesis; Mara Victoria Angulo in Education and ngela Orozco in Transportation.

Finally, the media says that of the six administrative departments, only one has a woman as head and that of Social Prosperity, with Susana Correa. He also mentions that of 38 vice ministries there are only 10 women and in their 18 general secretariats, there are seven. The promise was not kept.

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Parity in government: only five women remain in 18 ministries - Explica