International Women’s Day

Madam Chair of the Permanent Council, Ambassador María del Carmen Roquebert León; distinguished permanent representatives to the Organization of American States (OAS).

It fills us with joy to join the Permanent Missions of the friendly countries of Argentina, Canada, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico and Uruguay in commemorating International Women’s Day, as well as all the other sister countries that have joined this commemoration. This is a fitting occasion to pay tribute to all the women of the Americas who laid the foundations for building more equal societies, and to the women of the present who day after day challenge us as states to work hard to achieve the full citizenship of women.

In commemorating this International Women’s Day, it is always fitting to pay tribute to the anonymous heroines of the battle against COVID-19; to those women who fought and continue to fight to care for our nations. To them, our recognition and eternal gratitude. For our region, standing still has never been an option. That is why we are giving our best to face this pandemic, to recover our economies, to secure the health of our peoples and to meet with creativity the new challenges in technology and education.

As we are a region with a high vocation for solidarity and a great capacity to face adversity, I have absolutely no doubt that we will emerge stronger and that we will turn the lessons of the pandemic to good account. If we have learned anything as a region, it is the value of gender equality and equity for building more democratic and more inclusive societies, and as a source of sustainable development.

In the Dominican Republic, the crisis was also a great opportunity to rethink our care policies and to refocus the work aimed at women’s economic autonomy; it led us to new perspectives and approaches on women’s access to justice, and to advance toward more comprehensive models that allow us to confront violence against women, adolescents and girls with comprehensive public policies, as in our case with the preparation of a strategic plan for a life free of violence for women, adolescents and girls, looking to the next four years, through which we made a qualitative leap in the comprehensive approach to equality.

For us in the Dominican Republic, then, one of the great challenges our country faces for the full exercise of women’s physical autonomy is also adolescent pregnancy and early unions. To confront those realities, a serious problem of gender-based and domestic violence and of adolescent pregnancy, itself another form of violence, we have drawn up a policy to accelerate the reduction of adolescent pregnancy through a plan of action that directs institutional and budgetary efforts toward concrete, georeferenced results.

In the case of child marriage and early unions, it fills us with joy to share with you that in 2021 the first law promulgated by His Excellency the President of the Republic, Mr. Luis Abinader, was the one that prohibits the dispensation that allowed child marriage and early unions.

With regard to economic recovery, a commitment of our administration is to adapt the policies on job creation, social protection and business promotion so that they respond to a differentiated gender approach.

The pandemic lifted the veil on the inequalities women live with; and so, on International Women’s Day, our commitment is to advance toward the economic autonomy, the physical autonomy and the political autonomy of women, so that we may truly attain our full citizenship.

Thank you very much for the opportunity; I am very pleased to share this morning with you from the Dominican Republic.