President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) launched, this Wednesday (8), a set of measures aimed at the female population. The list includes, for example, free distribution of pads, resumption of 1,189 daycare works that were paralyzed across the country, proposal for equal pay between men and women and ratification of Convention 190 of the International Labor Organization (ILO). The announcement of the policies surfaced as a symbol of the commemoration of the International Women’s Day, always remembered every March 8th.
“There was a time when March 8th was celebrated with the distribution of flowers to women, while the other 364 days of the year were marked by discrimination, sexism and violence. Today, we are here celebrating March 8th with the respect that women demand,” said Lula, as he stirred up an audience made up of hundreds of popular leaders who attended the Planalto Palace this Wednesday to honor the announcement, in addition to names such as former president Dilma Rousseff (PT).
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President Lula (PT) presented this Wednesday (8), International Women’s Day, a series of measures in a Bill (PL) to ensure the fight against violence against women and to promote gender equity.
Check out an excerpt of his speech. ⤵ pic.twitter.com/kQCqiOw588
— Brasil de Fato (@brasildefato) March 8, 2023
The president also made comparisons between the measures launched by the management and the Bolsonaro government’s stance on the agenda of women’s interest. By saying that it is necessary to respect them “in all the spaces they want to occupy”, Lula said that the same respect “was lacking in the previous government when it opted for the destruction of public policies, cut essential budgetary resources and went so far as to stimulate, in a veiled way, the violence against women”.
The Minister of Women, Cida Gonçalves, highlighted that the actions announced by the government have multiple objectives: “What you see here today is a huge collective effort for robust policies to be implemented in order to face violence against women, promote gender equality, women’s economic autonomy, women’s integral health and their permanence with guaranteed rights in all spaces”.
Package
The government’s package foresees, for example, the refoundation of the “Mulher Viver sem Violência” program, which includes the construction of 40 new units of the Casas da Mulher Brasileira. The initiative will count with an investment of R$ 372 million, which will be applied in actions such as the donation of 270 vehicles to the Maria da Penha Patrol for the different states of the country.
Another noteworthy initiative is the announcement of a bill that will be sent to the National Congress with the aim of promoting equal pay between men and women who perform the same function in the labor market. The measure aims to combat gender wage discrimination, which rose again in the country in 2022, reaching the mark of 21% of difference in remuneration between men and women. The index is measured by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), which had been pointing to a downward trend in previous years.
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The Secretary for Women of the National Federation of Postal Workers and Workers (Fentect), Amanda Porcino, understands that the measure starts so that the difference can gradually reduce over time until equality is actually achieved in the professional environment.
“We have to seek this equality. In the public service, for example, we occupy 40% of the positions and even in this sector we have 15% less than the average salary. So, you see that it is a structural problem, which is passing by all sectors of society. Having an institutional policy aimed at equal pay helps us to advance in this fight, which is a fight of many years.”
The activist and professor Leci Maria Augusta, member of the “Partida DF” movement, said she was happy to learn that the package also focuses on the so-called “menstrual dignity” of women through a decree that provides for the free distribution of sanitary pads in the Single System of Health (SUS). The initiative seeks to serve low-income women who are unable to purchase the product monthly.
“As a public policy, this is women’s hygiene safety, because it is regrettable that in our country, with so much money being invested in other activities, a woman goes through this embarrassment (of not being able to buy sanitary pads). It was horrible (this policy) not have been voted on in the last four years, during this government that left”, he evaluates.
The ratification of Convention 190 of the ILO, for example, was received with emotion by the secretary of Women of the Central Única dos Trabalhadores do Distrito Federal (CUT-DF), Thaísa Magalhães. The document establishes norms to eliminate violence and moral and sexual harassment at work. The director points out that actions of this nature respond to the desires that have been voiced by the women’s movement in recent years and signal the arrival of “a new time”.
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“We’ve been saying since the 2016 coup that ‘women’s days would come’. Now we’ve started to walk and, for me, the ratification of the Convention was very significant. It had been waiting to be ratified since 2019 and today it was impossible to contain the tears when President Lula was seen signing (the text). We working women began to hope.”
Other measures
Lula also signed decrees and other documents that formalize the following actions: offering vacancies in professional courses for 20,000 vulnerable women over the next two years; institution of maternity leave for members of the Bolsa Atleta program; R$ 12 million in investments for cultural projects; creation of the National Policy for Inclusion, Permanence and Ascension of Girls and Women in Science, Technology and Innovation; and a budget forecast of R$ 100 million for actions to be announced by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) for women in the areas of Exact Sciences, Engineering and Computing.
In addition, the government included in the script the launch of a call for rural technical assistance for rural women under the program entitled “Rural Women’s Economic Productive Organization”. The projection is that R$ 50 million will be injected into the action, aimed at an audience of 20,000 women.
Editing: Nicolau Soares
