The State Council for Women’s Rights (CEDM) swore in, this Monday (27), the 107 counselors for the 2023/2025 term. The ceremony took place at the Dante Barone Theater of the Legislative Assembly. Feminist movements hope that with the inauguration of the new Council, permanent dialogue with state bodies will be guaranteed. The collegiate had been inactive since the beginning of the Eduardo Leite and Ranolfo government, when the election should have taken place.
Representing the National Council for Women’s Rights, Mara Feltes rescued the resumption of the National Council and the importance of councils. According to her, the Council is an achievement, the result of resistance and struggle. “Since President Dilma’s coup, there has been a moment of resistance. During this period we have been able to do nothing, we have managed to achieve nothing. It was not by chance that we were unable to hold the 5th Conference, because we had no resources. We hope to be starting a new moment”, said the representative, stressing that it is fundamental that this moment has also arrived in RS, which is one of the most violent states in relation to women.
As Mara pointed out, in the current composition of the Gaucho Council there are fighters from different segments. “We know how much we’re going to have to accomplish. We want to be celebrating the Brazilian Women’s House here in the state soon. We need to recover the State Secretariat for Women’s Rights. We have a lot to achieve. We have the 5th National Conference of Women ahead of us. Women, we hope that the state of RS puts resources in the budget to take a delegation to the national meeting”, she highlighted.
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The Assistant Secretary for Justice, Citizenship and Human Rights, Caroline Moreira, welcomed the inauguration of the new collegiate, pointing out that she hopes, from this moment on, there can be a dialogue that favors the guarantee and realization of women’s rights. “We know that these rights were won with a lot of struggle. And only recently recognized institutionally, even so there is still much to conquer, in view of all the inequalities that still exist”, she stressed.
On behalf of the Legislative Assembly, delegated state deputy Nadine (PSDB) briefly recalled her passage at the Women’s Police Station. “We have to take it one step at a time. I am fully convinced that this council will do all the dialogue so that we have even more protection, more equality, more parity, more equity in all spaces because that is what we women we want to be recognized and above all respected. Count on us, we are 11 state deputies in this Parliament and regardless of which party or ideology we always think of the common good of women, this appreciation of women and especially the fight for respect.”
The Secretary of Justice, Citizenship and Human Rights, Mateus Wesp, said it was an important day for the entire state government. “We know that the struggle of women comes from afar, mainly from the end of the 1970s after the party reform. The presence of women in government spaces began to be much more effective. But that’s not all, women reinforced through claims for specific guidelines, in this context, the State Council for Women’s Rights was created”, he explained.
The CEDM was created on April 25, 1986, and in 2012 the law that regulates it was sanctioned. The Council is an autonomous, deliberative, normative and supervisory public body, which prioritizes the validation of women’s rights and has as its task the dialogue between civil society and the State with regard to women’s rights.
“Being here today is to reinforce and propose public policies, monitor actions, endorse that we want and need women occupying spaces of power in all sectors of our society. The words so commonly used as gender equity, empowerment cannot be just loose words or thrown in the wind. Their meaning must come out of dictionaries to be put into daily practice”, highlighted the secretary.
Wesp added that it is still necessary to confront gender inequality in two important aspects. “The first is the financial autonomy of women and the second is the modification of cultural prejudices that need to be faced, ideological prejudices that still do not recognize women’s rights as they should always be recognized, with gender equality”, she concluded.
A fight from the State Forum of Women
Board members have already met this Monday (27) to define the executive and schedule of meetings / Photo: Célia Chaves
Board member Fabiane Dutra Oliveira, from the Brazilian Union of Women, said that she sees the reinstallation of the Board with great emotion after four years without activity. “We know that it’s just a stage that we are concluding with the inauguration. Now we start another fight that is for the full functioning of the Council. Today we don’t have a room, we don’t know where the equipment is, everything we had , when the Council was active, we will have to look for it. But more than these material issues in themselves, it is the public policies for women that we will have to restart”, she highlighted. According to Fabiane, a whole work will have to be done to verify what the government is currently providing, what can be suggested, the policies that exist and that can be monitored and propose improvements.
The first meeting of the Council took place this Monday, where the executive of the collegiate was elected and the schedule of meetings was agreed.
“We’re going to have to look for resources. We left the time of the Secretariat of Policy for Women where we had a resource of R$ 100,000, for a Sartori government with R$ 30,000 and now with a Leite government that we have zero. We are going to have to do a whole re-articulation also for resources. Luckily now we have the federal government, with the Ministry of Women, we are confident that from these articulations we will also be able to have resources for the Council to function”, concluded Fabiane.
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Source: BdF Rio Grande do Sul
Editing: Katia Marko
