Mexico's First Woman President Announces Reforms To Battle Gender Discrimination

• Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who took office this week as her country's first woman leader, announced a package of reforms on Thursday, October 3, aimed at bolstering women's rights in a country with some of the world's highest levels of gender violence.
• On her second full day in office, Sheinbaum said her government had proposed reforms to articulate and broaden women's rights, including a constitutional guarantee of equal pay for equal work.
• In Mexico, women make 65 pesos for every 100 pesos a man earns, according to the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness think tank, citing data from the national statistics agency.
• The reforms also seek to guarantee freedom from violence and to require gender parity in government cabinets at the state and federal levels. The plan involves modifying six articles of the Constitution and seven secondary laws, changes that will likely be approved in both houses of Congress, where the governing party, Morena, and its allies enjoy large majorities.
• Sheinbaum, the former mayor of Mexico City and a protege of former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, took office on Tuesday and vowed that it was "time for women." On Thursday, the president said the proposed reforms were part of an effort to ensure women knew their rights and could identify gender-based discrimination. Toward that end, her government promised to create a type of women's bill of rights.
• Mexico has made recent strides in the representation of women in government and public positions, not only with Sheinbaum's election but also by installing the first woman to lead the country's Supreme Court, the first female governor of the central bank, and gender parity in Congress.

(Source: Reuters)