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ParlAmericas promotes cooperative political dialogue at the Parliamentary Forum and the 16th Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean

August 15, 2025 | Activity

With the care society as a guiding vision —a paradigm that places the sustainability of life and the care of people and the planet at the center— ParlAmericas actively participated in the Parliamentary Forum of Latin America and the Caribbean, co-organized by ECLAC, UN Women, the Chamber of Deputies, and the Senate of the Republic of Mexico, as well as in various spaces of the XVI Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean. The sessions brought together parliamentarians from across the region to exchange legislative experiences and strengthen alliances in support of social and gender responsibility in care work, a key element in reducing structural inequalities.

Legislative initiatives and regional consensus on care

The Parliamentary Forum reaffirmed that the transition toward a care society requires concrete political action to drive profound transformations in all spheres toward a fair social reorganization. Participants agreed that legislating on care means not only recognizing the right to care, to receive care, and to self-care as a need and a form of work, but also as a human right.

In this context, Mexican Senator Verónica Noemí Camino Farjat, President of the ParlAmericas Parliamentary Network for Gender Equality, served as rapporteur for the Commission on Care Leave, where parliamentary delegations from the region highlighted good practices, with particular emphasis on parental leave. Representing Caribbean voices, the Honourable Alvina Reynolds, President of the Senate of Saint Lucia and Vice-President of ParlAmericas, stressed that promoting comprehensive care systems requires multi-party consensus that transcends political cycles, to work collectively toward a more equitable social organization of care.

Remarks such as those of the Honourable Dessima Williams, President of the Senate of Grenada and member of the ParlAmericas Board of Directors, on strategies to promote women’s political leadership; Carolina Delgado Ramírez, Member of the Legislative Assembly of Costa Rica and member of the ParlAmericas Board, on the impact of unpaid domestic and care work on the feminization of poverty; and Chilean Senator Carmen Gloria Aravena, Vice-President of the ParlAmericas Parliamentary Network for Gender Equality, together with Claudia Fuenzalida, Regional Coordinator of the ParlAmericas Parliamentary Staff Network for Gender Equality, on policies to recognize, reduce, and redistribute care work, offered concrete roadmaps for advancing toward social and gender responsibility in care. Likewise, the Honourable Catherine Juvinao, Member of the House of Representatives of Colombia and Vice-President of the ParlAmericas Open Parliament Network, presented the innovative care blocks initiative and the proposal for a care pension, underscoring how legal reforms can break historical cycles of inequality.

Together, these interventions projected a regional vision in which care work is recognized as a cornerstone for sustainable development, gender equality, and democratic resilience.

Regional gender agenda and women’s political leadership

Within the framework of the She Leads program of the Inter-American Task Force on Women’s Leadership (IATF), Antares Vázquez Alatorre, Member of the Chamber of Deputies of Mexico, participating on behalf of ParlAmericas, presented parliamentary strategies to foster inclusive leadership, empower women in the health sector, advance the legislative care agenda, and promote parity democracy.

For her part, Vice-President Alvina Reynolds also took part in the event Democracy’s debts and challenges to women in Latin America and the Caribbean, co-organized by UN Women, CLADEM, and other allied organizations, where she stressed the urgency of creating comprehensive, evidence-based care systems with adequate funding, developed in collaboration with civil society through citizen participation processes.

Institutional meetings and strategic alliances

The ParlAmericas agenda in Mexico City also included strategic institutional meetings. Chilean Senator Iván Flores, President of ParlAmericas; Vice-President Reynolds; and Anabella Zavagno, Deputy Director General of ParlAmericas, met with Dolores Padierna Luna, Vice-President of the Chamber of Deputies of Mexico, and Alejandro Murat Hinojosa, President of the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, to explore opportunities for regional cooperation and parliamentary actions to strengthen gender equality.

In addition, Vice-President Reynolds; Senator Williams; the Honourable Dr. Aiyna Ali, Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives of Trinidad and Tobago; the Honourable Dr. Nyan Gadsby-Dolly, Member of Parliament for Trinidad and Tobago; and Deputy Director Zavagno met with Alejandra Mora Mora, Executive Secretary of the Inter-American Commission of Women. This meeting reaffirmed the importance of consolidating strategic alliances to continue advancing the regional gender agenda and promoting women’s political participation and leadership in the Caribbean.

Member of the Chamber of Deputies Vázquez Alatorre also held a meeting with representatives of the civil society organization Equality Now to exchange perspectives on the need to advance legal reforms on sexual violence, to align national legislation with international human rights standards.

ParlAmericas’ participation in the Conference reaffirmed its commitment to strengthening regional parliamentary cooperation, promoting legal frameworks that guarantee gender equality, creating care systems that contribute to sustainable development, and consolidating parity democracies across the Americas and the Caribbean.