Women This Week: Milei Administration Dissolves Argentina’s Ministry of Women

Experts Fear Severe Impact on Efforts to Address Gender-Based Violence  

Argentina’s new President, Javier Milei, has dissolved the government agency responsible for addressing gender equality, including gender-based violence. Shortly after taking office, Milei took steps to fulfill his campaign promise to dismantle the Ministry of Women, Genders, and Diversity by downgrading it from a ministry to an undersecretariat. The government has now announced that the ministry will be absorbed by the human rights secretariat, leaving approximately five hundred of the undersecretariat’s staff unemployed; an estimated one hundred staff will remain. “This will be the first time since 1992, when the National Women’s Council was created, that [Argentina] won’t have an organism responsible for carrying out public policies that promote a life without violence and discrimination, and in favor of equality,” said the State Workers Association in a press release. The announcement came shortly after the ninth annual Ni Una Menos, or “Not One Less” march, which was held to protest the government’s backsliding on policies that tackle gender-based violence and anti-LGBTQ+ speech. The rate of femicide continues to increase in Argentina; local records show that seventy-eight women have been killed this year. 

Global Gender Gap Shows Plateau in New Report  

This week, the World Economic Forum (WEF) released the 2024 Global Gender Gap Index. The report analyzes 146 countries on progress toward gender equality in four areas, including economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. The data revealed that the gender gap remained virtually unchanged from last year, rising .1 percent to 68.6 from 68.5 percent. Ninety-seven percent of countries included reported having closed more than 60 percent of their gap. At this rate, the index anticipates that full gender parity will come in 134 years. “Despite some bright spots, the slow and incremental gains highlighted in this year’s Global Gender Gap Report underscore the urgent need for a renewed global commitment to achieving gender parity, particularly in economic and political spheres,” said Saadia Zahidi, managing director at the WEF. “We cannot wait until 2158 for parity. The time for decisive action is now.” 

Access to Abortion Pill Upheld in U.S. Supreme Court 

The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected a challenge that set to restrict access to the abortion pill, mifepristone. In a consolidation of two cases by abortion opponents against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the judges voted unanimously in finding that the plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the availability of the drug, which the FDA approved more than twenty years ago and expanded access to in 2016 and 2021, including through mail and telemedicine options. “We’re relieved that the Supreme Court recognized this sham case for what it is, but this baseless push to block abortion access should never have been heard by them in the first place,” Mini Timmaraju, CEO and president of Reproductive Freedom for All, said in a statement. “We need court reform to salvage the legitimacy of our federal judiciary – and we won’t stop fighting for it until it’s a reality.”