Women This Week: Milea’s Administration Disbands Argentine Ministry of Women’s Affairs

Experts fear efforts to tackle gender-based violence will have a major impact

Argentina’s new president, Javier Milei, has disbanded the government agency responsible for combating gender equality, including gender-based violence. Shortly after taking office, Milei took steps to fulfill his campaign promise to disband the Ministry of Women, Equality and Diversity by downgrading it from a ministry to an undersecretariat. The government has now announced that the ministry will be absorbed into the Human Rights Secretariat, leaving approximately five hundred Under-Secretariat staff out of work; it is estimated that approximately one hundred employees will remain. “It will be the first time since 1992, when the National Council of Women was created, that (Argentina) will not have a body responsible for pursuing public policies promoting life without violence and discrimination and for equality,” she added. – the State Employees Association announced in a press release. The statement came shortly after the ninth annual Ni Una Menos, or “No Less,” march, which was held to protest the government’s departure from policies against gender-based violence and anti-LGBTQ+ speech. Argentina’s femicide rate continues to rise; Local records show seventy-eight women have been murdered this year.

The global gender gap shows a plateau in a new report

This week, the World Economic Forum (WEF) released the Global Gender Gap Index for 2024. The report analyzed 146 countries’ progress towards gender equality in four areas, including economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and empowerment. political. The data showed the gender gap remained virtually unchanged from last year, increasing by 0.1% to 68.6 from 68.5%. Ninety-seven percent of countries included reported having closed more than 60 percent of the gap. At this rate, the index projects that full gender parity will occur in 134 years. “Despite some bright spots, the slow and gradual gains highlighted in this year’s Global Gender Gap Report underscore the urgent need for a renewed global commitment to achieving gender parity, particularly in the economic and political spheres,” said Saadia Zahidi, managing director of the WEF. “We cannot wait until 2158 for parity. The time has come for decisive action.”

Access to the abortion pill upheld in the US Supreme Court

The US Supreme Court rejected a challenge seeking to restrict access to the abortion pill mifepristone. Combining two abortion opponents’ cases against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the justices voted unanimously to find that the plaintiffs did not have standing to challenge the availability of a drug that the FDA approved more than two decades ago and expanded access through 2016 and 2021, including via mail and telemedicine options. “We are relieved that the Supreme Court recognized this bogus case as factual, but it should not have heard this baseless push to block access to abortion at all,” Mini Timmaraju, CEO and president of Reproductive Freedom for All, said in a statement. “We need judicial reform to save the legitimacy of our federal judiciary – and we won’t stop fighting for it until it becomes a reality.”