THE GENDER EQUITY COMMISSION OF THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES BEGINS 2008 WITH CLOSURE TOWARDS CIVIL SOCIETY

The linkage between legislative power and organizations last year was fluent, even though the subjects the Coalition deals with are marginal and contravene the agenda of several deputies. Starting this year, we witnessed the rejection to deal with issues within our agendas: women and HIV, maternal death, sexual health and reproductive health in teenagers, among others. On January 15th 2008, the Directive Board of the Commission for Gender and Equity finally summoned the Coalition to a meeting which had been sought for over more than two months. The Coalition attended the appointment with the idea of presenting the human rights agenda, specially the right to health and pending as well as necessary issues to be addressed by the legislative power. Unfortunately, the deputies of the Commission left the meeting without giving the opportunity for the Coalition to present its points.

Facing this situation the Coalition, on voice of Melissa Ortiz, representative of Fundar in the Coalition, regrets the fact that the deputies turn their backs to organizations which are expert in issues such as maternal death, HIV/AIDS, Contraception, Analysis of the Popular Health Insurance, Indigenous Women and Public Budgets with gender perspectives among others. Therefore, dialogue is closed and a step back is taken regarding the achievements accomplished by the Commission for Gender Equity in budget matters for 2008, based on information provided by expert organizations in the field. Finally, this action taken by the Commission of the Chamber of Deputies contravenes the recommendations emitted by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights in its up to date overview on the observance of the Mexican state's obligations on women's human rights.

Fundar is about to publish the document “Far away so close, gender perspective in budget negotiation 2007- 2008” about the work experience between civil society and legislative power on budget matters and labeled expenditure for women.

2008 Budget: historical success on labeled expenditure.

The Coalition for Women's Health [1] devoted itself to working during 2007 along with the deputies of the Commission for Gender and Equity of the Chamber of Deputies of the 60 th legislature in order to make the 2008 Federal Budget take a step forward in labeled expenditure, making it broader, labeled and transparent. The result was positive and for the first time a historical amount of 7,024.8 million pesos was achieved. In addition, they managed to reallocate resources for two new systems emerged from the General Law of Equality between Men and Women and the General Law for Women's Access to a Life Free of Violence. These developments represent an important step in the gender agenda as well as an achievement forf civil society.

With these successful actions the Coalition responded to the severe backwardness that the 2007 budget represented for the women's human rights agenda. In the latter budget the labeled expenditure couldn't be identified neither promptly nor transparently. Given the situation and addressing the problems and limitations of women's health in the political agenda of our country, the Coalition was thus formed with 12 civil society organizations specialized in the subject.

[1] Composed by the civil organizations: Afluentes, Catholics for the Right to Decide (CDD), Women Communication and Info rmation (CIMAC), Consortium for Parliamentary Dialogue and Equity, Initiative for a Risk-free Maternity, Project on Maternal Death of the Forum on Women and Population Policies Federal District, Fundar, Group for Info rmation on Chosen Reproduction, IPAS-Mexico, Kinal Ant'setik, Mexfam and Integral Health for Women (SIPAM).