Venezuela: an Inclusive Revolution.By Lisandra Puentes Valladares

Time speeds and slows down in deceptive manners. It is unbelievable that a year has passed since the television broadcast announced the death of the leader of the Bolivarian Revolution, Hugo Chávez, but, however, it is true. Today Latin America pays homage to the Commandante who made Venezuela a new land. An inclusive Constitution that raises hives. Women, children were included and made visible in Venezuela at the end of last century with the arrival of Chávez to power, he promoted equality between genders and proclaimed the right to work. The Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic was an irrefutable example of changes drawing near. With the approval of the Constitution an answer was given to the main demands of the feminist movements: the use of a language that is not sexist.



More than one article of the Constitution evidences the political will to place women in her rightful place that patriarchal mandates had denied her. The right to work in conditions of equality with men as well as the guarantee of social security for housewives were conquests stated in its Article 88.


INFO-Venezuela

However this inclusive Project bothered academics of the language who denounced the excessive use of masculine and feminine in a text. ”They have criticized the visibility of woman in language, a constitutional achievement of the Venezuelan women that we use so proudly and with such naturalness we have introduced in our academic discourse” declared the president of the Supreme Court of Justice, Luisa Estella Morales.

With the arrival of Chávez to power, women organized in different ideological movements adding force to the drafting of the new Constitutions of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela with a focus on gender explained in the web site: americalatinagenera.org

“Even women in government and previous parliamentarians were called. Even others of the Bolivarian government and Sub commission of Women, Youth and Family to the National Constitutive Assembly to express their opinions on the restoration of visibility and future of gender that was made possible through an intense and coordinated participation of women organized broadly, in plurality and inclusive, regardless of ideological-political position”, is explained well in the web.

Inclusion was not a dead letter. In each public appearance, in each discourse, the leader of the Revolution took into account Venezuelan women, girls and workers.

A life free of violence: a right

In 2013 the Venezuela National Assembly approved unanimously, in the first discussion, the Partial Reform of the Project of an Organic Law and Women’s Rights to Life Free from Violence. According to the web site of the Assembly, the general prosecutor of the Venezuelan Bolivarian Republic Luisa Ortega Díaz requested the president of the Parliament, Diosdado Cabello Rondón to reform articles 64 and 65 to establish sanctions to any who commit a form of aggression against women that led to a Public Consultation of the legal instrument for all the states of the Venezuelan territory.

The deputy of the Assembly and Coordinator of the Sub Commission of Women and Gender Equality of the Permanent Commission of Social Development, Zulay Martínez, explained that the law includes sanction for the crime of killing women, from a personal or work point of view. “It is time that violence against women be totally eradicated; this is a feminist government,” she declared.

Although it is true that laws do not directly conduce to a change of mentality and attitude, above all in a country with a strong patriarchal heritage, it demonstrates the political will of the Chavist government to reduce and eradicate evil deeply rooted and embedded.

Barrio Mothers: agents of social change

Venezuela presents high rates of fertility in the adolescent population. To achieve that each pregnancy is desired and birth be without risks is one of the challenges facing this nation if we consider what has been expressed by the Population Foundation of the United Nations and the agency of the international Conference on Population and Development, held 20 years ago in El Cairo.

With the need to work on this problem, the Ministry of Popular Power for the Women and Gender Equality in this country, requested collaboration and advice for a study that deals with these questions.

Systematic work done by Cuba and sexual and reproductive health and antecedents of a similar investigation made by the National Center of Sexual Education with the support of UNFPA promoted an exchange of specialists in both nations.


President-Hugo-Chávez-and-the Mission-Mothers-of the-Barrio


Work was done in this study between 2011 and 2012 that proposed characterizing sexuality in adolescents and diagnosing the conditions of the social context that has an incidence on taking decisions on reproduction and exploring the practices of attention to adolescent pregnancy by different community actors.

In this sense a strategy was designed in which the Foundation Mission of Mothers of the Barrio of the Ministry leading the study will have an important role.

Psychologist and specialist of CENESEX, Nadina Peñalver, participated in all phases of the investigation and referred that the States included were samples from Zulia and Barinas. “The support of the government was important in human and material resources assigned to the investigation”, commented the specialist.

629 persons were incorporated in the Mission Mothers of the Barrio, Merida, September 2013.

This approach to the problem contributed to the preparation of actions for the prevention of adolescent pregnancies observed mostly in persons who live in poverty. There are still breaches to close. It is undeniable that the work with women and girls constitutes a step Venezuela takes to comply with the Objectives of Development of the Millennium.

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