LATAM-WOMEN: Hillary Clinton, Breaking With Conventional Agenda

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Oct 20 1997 (IPS) - U.S. President Bill Clinton’s South American tour ended up giving a boost to women’s rights and empowerment thanks to his wife Hillary, whose activities were far removed from the conventional agenda of a First Lady.

The Clintons visited Venezuela, Brazil and Argentina last week, spending the weekend in the southern Andean resort town of Bariloche, Argentina before returning home.

On the first leg of their tour, in Venezuela, Hillary visited an organisation of women who have received microcredits without providing collateral, and invested them in small, generally successful enterprises.

In Brazil, she discussed the problem of school drop-outs and women’s health issues, and in Argentina triggered reactions with her call for the promotion of reproductive rights.

“Too many women in the hemisphere are trapped in the cycle of poverty,” perpetuated by limited education, lack of access to healthcare and reproductive rights, and too many women have no access to credit or property, “or are victims of domestic violence,” she said in Buenos Aires.

Democracy prospers when women claim their rights as citizens, she added, citing examples from several countries in the region of women contributing to development.

To frequent applause from an enthusiastic and varied audience of 1,500 women, Hillary criticised a consumer culture which represented women as objects and made girls believe their appearance was more important than their minds or hearts, and lamented how few women were aware of their rights.

No nation can be successful in today’s global economy if half of the citizens lack opportunities to take full advantage of their rights, she maintained.

The First Lady’s speeches implied that Argentina’s close alignment with U.S. foreign policy was not equalled by its affinity with respect to women’s matters. Argentina traditionally votes in line with the Vatican and against women’s right to family planning at global conferences organised under United Nations auspices.

A draft law according to which the Argentine state would provide contraceptives free of charge in public hospitals has been shelved in the Senate for the last two years.

When Hillary spoke of the need to promote reproductive rights, her host, the president of the National Women’s Council, squirmed uncomfortably in her seat. “Personal beliefs and positions are respected in Argentina,” was her brief, indirect response, found unconvincing by many advocates of women’s rights.

Speaking with IPS, Zita Montes, president of the Women in Equality Foundation, said all the women sitting in Hillary’s audience in the Colon Theatre in Buenos Aires agreed with her positions, “including government functionaries.”

But, she added, they had little gender awareness and a strong political loyalty to male party leaders.

She cited the case of Zelmira Regazzolli, the Foreign Ministry’s under-secretary of human rights, who voted against women’s rights at the 1995 world conference on women but fervently applauded Hillary.

“Well, one thing is what I feel as a woman, and another what I must do as a functionary,” she told Montes.

Businesswoman Amalia Lacroze de Fortabat, one of Argentina’s richest women, attended Hillary’s speech. “Hillary said what women in Argentina think – that we must boost education and family planning, and take measures to prevent the deaths of girls who go round the corner to have an abortion,” she said, in a statement that differed from her usual tone.

In Argentina, abortion – which is illegal – is the top cause of maternal mortality.

Deputy Maria Lubertino of the opposition Radical Civic Union remarked with irony that “Hillary Clinton had to come to Argentina before reproductive rights were discussed at an event organised by the National Women’s Council.”

In another gesture praised by women here, the First Lady asked to meet with the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, an organisation created 20 years ago to search for the sons and daughters of people who were ‘disappeared’ during the 1976-83 military dictatorship. The children were abducted along with their parents or born in captivity.

The president of the human rights group, Estela Carlotto, stressed that this was the first time they were received by a first lady, with the sole exception of Danielle Mitterrand, widow of former French president Francois Mitterrand, who has long supported the group.

In Venezuela, Hillary insisted on meeting with the Foundation for the Development of the Popular Economy, in the poor neighbourhood of Catia. She talked with several women who had established successful small businesses thanks to micro-financing, including one entrepreneur who started out as a juice vendor, set up a restaurant and butchershop, and now is the proud mother of a university student.

“I met many women like them in Panama, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Mexico and Chile, and I am sure there are also many like them in Argentina,” said Hillary, stressing the need to support such women, who have know-how but no collateral with which to secure loans.

In Brazil she visited schools in Sao Paulo and in a poor neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro, where she made direct contact with women and children, going beyond protocol, breaking security rules and above all breaking away from the traditional agenda of a First Lady.