Bolivian President Luis Arce has declared 2022 “The Year of the Cultural Revolution to Eliminate the Patriarchy”, telling world leaders this decade should be used to transform structures of inequality and end violence against women and girls.
Speaking at the UN General Assembly, Arce made an impassioned speech drawing attention to gender inequality and linking the patriarchy to colonialism and capitalism. He also said that his nation, Bolivia, has declared 2022 “The Year of the Cultural Revolution to Eliminate the Patriarchy”, urging others to do the same.
“I would like to draw attention to something that alarms us at the global level – that is, the persistence of violence against women and girls, in particular Indigenous women and girls that find themselves in situations of poverty,” Arce said in speech.
“The pandemic and the structural crisis of capitalism have deteriorated the living conditions of women…they continue to confront complex and intersectional forms of violence.”
“In our Plurinational State of Bolivia, we’ve declared 2022 “The Year of the Cultural Revolution to Eliminate the Patriarchy”, for a life free of violence against women.”
President Arce also spoke about the policies that have been implemented to reduce gender inequality in Bolivia and urged leaders at the United Nations General Assembly to ensure this decade is one focused on the elimination of the patriarchy.
“We are promoting polices that not only strengthen normative frameworks but also to deal with the structural causes of violence starting from education, strengthening economic empowerment of women and also cultural processes to transform this regrettable reality that is caused by patriarchy as the most ancient system of oppression that is also linked to colonialism and capitalism,” he said.
“We propose that this General Assembly declares the decade of the elimination of patriarchy.
“We are speaking of elimination of patriarchy because it’s important to have an in depth political, economic, social and cultural transformation based on community respect and reciprocal relations for a life free from any exclusion, domination, exploitation, discrimination, violence for all of human kind and for mother Earth.”