Strengthening the participation of women in decision-making structures was the focus of EI Latin America’s Women Education Workers’ Network when it met in Costa Rica on 27-29 November.
Denise Mora from Costa Rica and Rosalba Gómez of Colombia, both members of EI Latin America’s Regional Committee, stressed the important role of the Network in training and educating women trade unionists.
“Participation is important and so is raising awareness in our organisations’ executive boards, so that women continue to participate,” said Gómez.
Mora spoke of the important role of the Women Education Workers’ Network which has brought together so many women educators over the years, ever since it started operating in 2007.
Participation quotas
Ana Helena Chacón, a women’s rights activist and former member of the Costa Rican parliament, underlined the need for participation quotas as a mechanism for achieving equal participation with men in positions of power. “If we didn’t have participation quotas, we would be waiting another 200 years to achieve equality,” she said. “The only country that has made real progress in women’s participation, without a quota law, is Cuba.”
For Elibeth Venegas, a member of parliament from the Republic of Costa Rica, gender is a theme present in every sphere, in the home, in politics, in social issues, and so on. She outlined “what doing politics is” and advised on how to express yourself and communicate ideas, make complaints, act for the collective good, exercise power and take decisions, supervise public property, demand that promises be fulfilled and propose projects.
“It is important to strengthen solidarity and parity in leadership, with an awareness of men’s and women’s gender issues, as a strategy for political access” and to “promote initiatives by women that have a political impact”, said Venegas.
EI: Female participation strengthens unions
The chief coordinator of EI’s Latin American Regional Office, Combertty Rodríguez, highlighted the importance of executive boards sending a consistent message by bringing women into leadership roles and ensuring that there was always space for women.
“There is nothing to be gained from electing a woman if that space then disappears when a new leadership is elected,” he pointed out.
“EI Latin America believes that the participation of women strengthens trade unions, which is why EI’s Regional Committee has included as a key pillar of its work the Women Education Workers’ Network, which fosters participation, and provides education and training for women in member unions.”
This topic will be addressed during the second EI world women’s conference, taking place in Dublin, Republic of Ireland April 7th-9th. The conference theme is Women in Trade Unions and in Education: from words to action, and the subject of the unfinished agenda of women’s leadership in trade unions will be addressed in a keynote address and in a panel discussion between top women leaders in teachers’ unions. Visit the conference website here