Medellín, Colombia – On the eve of the Worldwide Day of Ladies in Diplomacy, Colombian Overseas Minister Laura Sarabia signed a decree confirming Colombia because the eighth nation on this planet with an specific feminist international coverage (Política Exterior Feminista– PEF).
“That is one other milestone, however a very powerful factor is that this doesn’t simply stay a signature, a bit of paper, or simply one other dedication made amongst girls. We have to transfer to motion — to consolidate mechanisms for participation,” Sarabia famous.
“I wish to see many extra girls ministers, many extra younger girls setting the tone, shaping the route of international coverage,” the minister added.
The proposal of a Colombian feminist international coverage was made public in March 2024 throughout a United Nations Fee on the Standing of Ladies session, and later reaffirmed in October 2024 through the COP16 biodiversity convention held in Cali, Colombia’s third-largest metropolis.
Marketed as a “participative, pacifist and intersectional” coverage, the decree has the aim of selling and guaranteeing the rights of girls and members of LGBTQIA+ communities by means of mechanisms of lively participation in international coverage settings.
Throughout final yr’s COP, nonetheless, the Colombian delegation emphasised PEF’s environmental concerns, which embody addressing the differentiated influence of local weather change on girls, selling girls’s participation in environmental policymaking, and inspiring girls’s involvement within the sustainable administration of pure assets and conservation efforts.
Learn extra: Conservation funds flop, Indigenous rights inch ahead: key outcomes of COP16 defined
The brand new decree will information institutional transformations led by the Ministry of Overseas Relations and different actors representing Colombia overseas. In 2025, these efforts in strengthening institutional and diplomatic frameworks are to:
- Tackle gender points on the worldwide degree by way of insurance policies that shield and assure girls’s rights;
- Spearhead a community of cooperation and solidarity between nations and organizations dedicated to gender equality;
- Foster public consciousness and schooling on gender points;
- Promote the lively and significant participation of girls and LGBTQIA+ people in worldwide decision-making processes;
- Guarantee equitable illustration in multilateral boards and organizations, in addition to equal entry to management and empowerment alternatives.
Picture Supply: UN Ladies
The coverage, nonetheless, can be to information the on a regular basis internal workings of diplomatic organizations.
By way of migration, as an example, the brand new decree mandates that Colombian representatives work explicitly in the direction of the dignified remedy of girls and woman migrants. And in worldwide commerce, Colombia is now to advertise the elimination of limitations for ladies entrepreneurs whereas encouraging their participation in world worth chains and key financial sectors.
Considered one of eight and the third in Latin America
The primary nation on this planet to undertake a feminist international coverage was Sweden in 2014, and whereas there is no such thing as a agreed upon definition of what it really constitutes, many nations have embraced this banner, in accordance to UN Ladies.
The ever-growing checklist additionally consists of nations like Canada, France, Chile and Mexico, which have responded to world crises and setbacks in basic rights with feminist international insurance policies, in line with Bibiana Aido Almagro, UN Ladies consultant in Colombia.
“In 2025, a yr marked by essential commemorations for ladies’s rights, feminist international insurance policies aren’t simply one other department of worldwide relations, however quite a complete strategy to world politics that may safeguard many years of progress, drive revolutionary responses to crises, and assist construct a extra simply future,” Aido Almagro famous in a June 24 opinion article printed by Colombia’s Gender Roundtable for Worldwide Cooperation.
And whereas many feminist international insurance policies overlap with different long-standing commitments relating to girls, peace, safety or gender equality, they will present a unifying political framework by which to information each inner and international insurance policies.
The opposite two Latin American nations which have adopted and maintained such measures- Mexico and Chile- have executed so with totally different pillars to Colombia.
For one, Mexico turned the primary nation within the world south to undertake a feminist international coverage in January 2020. On this occasion, the coverage is guided by office gender parity, institutional enchancment for gender equality, and the whole eradication of gender-based violence, amongst others.
Nonetheless, in line with the Mexico Peace Index 2025 report by the Institute for Economics and Peace’s Imaginative and prescient of Humanity platform, machismo, impunity and socio-cultural norms that perpetuate discrimination towards girls are deeply rooted within the nation. With this, the prevalence of sexual assault and household violence towards girls has greater than doubled previously decade, and as per UN Ladies information, a mean of 9 to 10 girls are killed every single day.
In any other case, the 2023 Chilean coverage prioritizes the strengthening of democracy and human rights, the elimination of gender-based violence, higher girls and minorities illustration in public spheres, and the efficient participation of girls and ladies in scientific and diplomatic work, amongst others.
In distinction, Argentina appointed a Particular Consultant for Feminist Coverage in December 2022, however the position was shortly dissolved by December 2023 underneath the management of present President Javier Milei. In its choice, Argentina additionally substituted the Ministry of Ladies, Gender and Range for the Secretariat of Safety towards Gendered Violence, underneath the Ministry of Human Capital.
Controversies
In accordance to a King’s School London scholar, feminist international insurance policies are treacherous as a result of they permit the imposition of Western values on creating nations and the upkeep of world hierarchies.
A 2024 Georgetown College research, nonetheless, discovered that these measures really promote the “inter-state diffusion of feminist concepts and nations’ home political forces end in gender-attentive transitional justice.” Their emergence in creating nations, in reality, emphasizes their significance throughout the geopolitical spectrum, for which feminist international insurance policies should be seen as expressions of dedication to gender equality.
In Colombia, the latest PEF decree should be seen as an development when it comes to strengthening, guaranteeing and selling the rights of girls and numerous populations alike, Universidad Nacional researcher Melissa Vallejo Carrillo notes.
Nonetheless, Vallejo Carillo additionally warns that, to ensure that PEF to be efficient, it should be repeatedly promoted each by the present authorities and people to come back.
Featured picture credit score:
Picture: Overseas Minister Laura Sarabia
Writer: Cancillería Colombia
Supply: Cancillería Colombia by way of X
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