Regarding the advancement of public services and fiscal policy, 2021 ended with the formal presentation of a popular initiative of constitutional norm that we did along with 19 other organisations in Chile, such as Public Services International, Fundación Ciudadanía Inteligente and the Center for Economic and Social Rights, among many others.

On early January 2022, and after passing a thorough admissibility process, the proposal was officially published by the Constitutional Convention to start the signature recollection campaign. As per statutory norms, every popular initiative proposal should gather at least 15.000 signatures to be included in the official constitutional debate. After a strong mobilisation of organisations and trade unions where GI-ESCR played a crucial role, the proposal collected 16,388 signatures which exceeded the required threshold, as well as being also supported by 12 constitutional convention representatives as an internal proposal.

This success enabled GI-ESCR and partners to participate in the constitutional debate, bringing the narrative of the importance of public services in meeting basic needs for a dignified life and the need of a fair and human rights-based fiscal policy to provide long term funding, directly to the Environment, Nature Rights, Natural Common Goods and Economic Model and the Form of State Commissions.

After 4 months of intense advocacy work, on April 12, the normative proposal on universal quality public services presented by GI-ESCR’s Chile team and partners was successfully included in the draft of the Constitutional Convention with 144 –out of 154– votes. This meant that the work of bringing the content of the Global Manifesto for Public Services and the Principles for Human Rights in Fiscal Policy for the first time in the world was subjected to popular scrutiny as an integral part of the draft constitution.

In addition to the Constitutional Convention advocacy, in April, and together with Public Services International (PSI), we organised a two-day event in Santiago aimed to debate and promote universal and quality public services as the foundations of a just and equitable society. The event was attended by Chile’s Government Authorities, civil society organizations, and trade unions affiliated with PSI in Chile and in Latin America and the Caribbean and included a round of preparatory meetings with the Minister Secretary General of the Presidency of Chile, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of Labour.

Our role in mainstreaming the topics of public services and fiscal policy in the constitutional process was highlighted by several media outlets such as Diario UChile, El Desconcierto, Página 19, El Mostrador, G5 Noticias, Crónica Digital and Bianet (Turkey). Regarding gender equality, last year’s report gave an account of the production of the “Más que Juanitas” report; a document that highlighted 28 points a new constitution needed to fully incorporate women’s economic, social, cultural and environmental rights. Throughout 2022, we advocated for this text to be taken into account by the Constitutional Convention by printing the posters and sending them to all its female representatives and calling them to use the checklist provided by the report. We also used the document to participate in several events convened by partners such as Humanas and Miles Chile. We also partnered with local and regional media outlets such as Infobae, El Mostrador and El Ciudadano to disseminate our narratives around the articles a constitution can include guaranteeing gender equality and the ways in which the Constitutional Convention could change women’s life experiences through quality public services.

Specifically, for the commemoration of March 8th, we published three op-eds regarding the close link between gender and environmental and energetic participation in Latin America (Mexico Social and RED/ACCION), how the feminist strike can help recognise and reinvent the role of care in Latin America (El País) and the draft of a feminist constitution in Chile (El País).

Finally, regarding justiciability, we partnered with the OHCHR to convene several international human rights experts such as Soledad García Muñoz (IACHR), Christian Courtis (UN) and Julieta Rossi (UN) and record short videos around the importance of having a strong

justiciability system to protect, respect and fulfil economic, social and cultural rights. This material was officially distributed to the members of the Constitutional Convention, particularly those who took part on the Justice Systems Commission.

The local organisation’s empowerment has been channelled through the La Constitución es Nuestra (‘The Constitution is Ours’) digital platform launched in 2021.

Once the substantive work within the Constitutional Convention was over in early 2022, this platform was the main protagonist of our work in Chile. Figuring out a new use for the digital platform, along with Fundación Ciudadanía Inteligente, Fundación Avina and Amnesty International Chile, we created a new version of the “La Constitución es Nuestra” project which sought to build and disseminate quality evidence towards the exit referendum taking advantage of the experience and expertise CSO’s acquired during the process.

To fulfil our objective, we created a methodology to evaluate the articles included in the draft of new constitution prepared by the Constitutional Convention, based on the potential impact that the regulations would have on people's quality of life, the progress in relation to human rights, social and economic justice agendas; and the connection of the resulting regulations with the longstanding demands of citizen and social movements. With this information, a final phase of the project deployed territorial efforts across the country to encourage the informed vote in the exit referendum.

On a first phase, the project sought to raise awareness of the democratic and participative features the constitutional process introduced for the first time in Chile. This was done through the publication of an op-ed that was echoed by several media outlets such as BioBio Chile, Debo Saber, En Qué Invertir, Sentirse Bella, Noticias Hoy y Mexico Social. Once the methodology and all the instruments were created and tested, we initially convened more than 40 local organisations and renowned international experts, who individually or collectively in workshops produced the quality evidence we were reaching for. All the evidence was uploaded to the website where it is still published with open access. Launched in July 2022, the platform gathered the work of more than 48 local organisations and 16 international experts and published in total of 113 article evaluations of the draft constitution. This launch was announced through an op-ed that emphasized the citizen’s democratic duty of knowing the new constitution. The website reached more than 147.000 visits and more than 49.000 unique users.

The final phase concentrated the organisation’s efforts to spread the contents of the draft constitution and the evaluations through the distribution of materials across the whole country and the organisation of constitutional workshops to discuss and clarify citizen’s doubts and queries. In total, we distributed 31.720 constitutions, 70.800 sets of material and participated in 17 workshops which convened more than 500 people only in the metropolitan area of Chile. Finally, we published a set of informative videos of the exit referendum, one of which reached more than 1.4 million views.

The impact of the project was highlighted by several specialised media outlets such as Plataforma Contexto and France 24.

Continuing with last year’s global work, we continued connecting discussions in Chile with international debates on economic justice and inequality. One of this local–international dialogue spaces was ReimaginaLA, an event co-organised with Fundación Ciudadanía Inteligente, Fundación Avina, Public Services International, the Friedrich-Ebert Foundation and Fundación Colunga in April 2022. The meeting, aimed to strengthen the local discussion, share the lessons learned from the Constitutional Convention with the region, create networks and advance common narratives on issues related to human rights and democracy in times of transition, convened more than 40 organisations from all over Latin America.

ReimaginaLA also served as the opportunity to launch the first IACHR resolution focused on climate emergency and human rights. This side event saw the presentations of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Chile, Antonia Urrejola; the Minister of Environment of Chile, Maisa Rojas; the Special Rapporteur on Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights of the IACHR, Soledad García Muñoz; the Executive Director of GI-ESCR and former Special Rapporteur for extreme poverty and human rights of the United Nations, Magdalena Sepúlveda; and the Director of Espacio Público and Chile’s popular representative for the Escazú Agreement, Andrea Sanhueza. The space produced by ReimaginaLA was also the opportunity to organise a visit to informal settlements by GI-ESCR and Techo-Chile, who brought together a group of Casa Abierta’s representatives and Soledad García Muñoz, the REDESCA Rapporteur. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss human rights violations in Valparaiso’s informal settlements.

In May, in the context of the 90th session of the Committee of the Rights of the Child where it concluded the sixth and seventh periodic reports of Chile, along with Public Services International, we submitted a brief report to highlight the ways in which the standards set out by the Global Manifesto for Public Services can be useful to operationalise and bring forward renewed quality public care services that respect, protect and fulfil children’s rights.

Later on, in June, together with the Geneva Academy, and in the context of the 50th regular session of the Human Rights Council we organized a side event to analyse the key risks challenges, and opportunities arising from the Chilean Constitutional process from a human rights perspective. The event was moderated by our Executive Director, Magdalena Sepúlveda, and saw the participation of Christophe Golay, Senior Research Fellow and Strategic Adviser on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights at the Geneva Academy; Javier Couso, Professor of Law at the Universidad Diego Portales in Santiago, Chile, and Professor of Global Trends in Constitutionalism at the University of Utrecht, Netherlands; Koldo Casla, Lecturer in Law and the Director of the Human Rights Centre Clinic, University of Essex; and Valentina Contreras, Representative in Chile of the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

In October, we met with representatives of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, from the state of Florida, USA, to talk about their "Fair Food Program", a model based on social responsibility driven by farm workers, producers and retail buyers, with a focus on the defence of economic, social, cultural and environmental rights. In November, several activities took place. Firstly, along with Centro Contribuye we organised a roundtable with Patriotic Millionaires, a group of millionaires from the USA and the UK that advocate for higher taxes on large fortunes. Attended by organisations such as FES, AFIICH, Fundación Libera, Espacio Público and Amnesty International Chile, the roundtable sought to build support around the need for a change of narratives around the understanding of taxation and the role of the State in the economy. The same month, we were invited by Amnesty International Argentina to talk about the continuity of the constitutional process in Chile, its challenges and lessons learned. The panel, moderated by Mariela Belski, Executive Director of Amnesty International Argentina, also saw the participation of Julieta Suarez-Cao, professor of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile; Rodrigo Bustos, Executive Director of Amnesty International Chile; Gabriel Puricelli, member of the board of directors of Amnesty International Argentina; and Valentina Contreras, GI-ESCR’s Chile Representative.

Finally, November also witnessed the Our Future is Public event in Santiago de Chile, which was covered by several local media outlets such as El Mostrador, ADN País Radio, Alegrate FM, El Demócrata, Maule Noticias and Página 12.

We developed an open and collaborative digital platform that allows connecting citizens’ proposals with the work of the Constitutional Convention. Social rights with a gender perspective in the new constitution.

 

"Mrs. Juanita" is a metaphor that has become established in the Chilean collective unconscious. It represents a universalisation of the female political experience in Chile, an external and macho image of Chilean women on which norms, policies and "social assistance" programmes are built, and on which the political imaginary of all sectors is often centred.

 

Faced with the enormous risk that conceptual figures such as this could taint the constitutional debate on economic, social, cultural and environmental rights (ESCR), approaching this debate from a perspective that integrates the gender approach, the constitution and ESCR offers an opportunity and a transformative space to address the endemic problems of social and economic injustice that affect women and diversities in Chile, with a view to the construction of the new constitutional text.

 

For this reason, organisations with many years of experience in feminism or social rights have joined GIESCR to share stories from women in Chile, with the aim of identifying the key elements for mainstreaming a gender perspective in all social rights, thus contributing to the transformation of the ways in which these rights are understood and protected.

 

The testimonies respond to the question: How can the new Constitution change the life experiences of women in Chile?

The majority of citizens voted in favour of a new constitution, a text that should reflect a new reality for a society still ruled until then by a constitution drafted under the 1973-1990 dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

The law should give voice to a society that last October took to the streets in massive rallies expressing anger and desperation nationwide. Nobody thought at that time that the rise in Santiago’s metro fare would cause such an outcome, but that was just the tip of the iceberg.

The extreme inequalities of the country led to this “Chilean awakening,” which achieved strong international support. The success around the globe of the anthem ‘A rapist in your path,’ performed by the feminist band Las Tesis, was proof.

Women, along with young generations and indigenous communities, are in fact one of the social groups that are most affected by inequality in Chile. Despite the image of prosperity of the country, a substantial proportion of the population has not benefited from economic progress.

It’s true that after three decades of stable growth, controlled inflation and falling poverty rates, Chile now has Latin America’s highest income per capita. But it remains the most unequal of the OECD countries, with an income gap that is about 65% higher than average.

Chile’s most disadvantaged people are struggling with high living costs, lack of social protection, low wages, and segregationist housing policies. In addition to this, the privatization of pensions and healthcare systems, and an underfunding of education, undermine opportunities for vulnerable groups.

That is the case of women, who suffer from lower wages and, therefore, lower pensions. The privatization of the education system has also led to social exclusion of girls from poorer families.

A feminist, more inclusive analysis of economic and social policies is necessary to ensure that the new constitution enables substantive gender equality and human rights in the country. In this context, it is crucial to support those groups who are demanding transformative changes.

The importance of the Chilean case transcends national boundaries because it is an example of how neoliberal policies and privatization of public services led to extreme inequality across the globe. That is why this would be a major victory not only for rights holders in Chile, but also in many other countries.

The goal is to achieve better management of public services – particularly education, health, water and sanitation, and social security. We support and collaborate with feminist movements and organizations to ensure that women’s rights are placed at the center of the public agenda in the constitutional discussions.

In collaboration with partners, GI-ESCR elaborates and distributes technical briefings and advocacy materials to raise awareness of economic inequality and the negative impact of certain public policies on women’s rights.

We also use international human rights and gender equality processes to promote gender-inclusive and climate sensitive solutions.

To increase global scrutiny on Chile and pressure the national government and other institutions, GI-ESCR advocates in regional and international rights spaces to amplify citizen demands, in particular from women and groups traditionally excluded from national debates.