MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Uruguayan women stage 8M demonstrations and commemorations

Opposition leader Cosse is one of the likely contenders for Uruguay's Presidency in 2025. She would become the first woman to hold that post

Montevideo Mayor Carolina Cosse took center stage during the Women's Day demonstrations across Avenida 18 de Julio organized by 50 feminist collectives under the motto “against hunger and oppression”.

Cecilia Sarasola, from the Popular and Solidarity Coordinating Committee, in charge of reading the proclamation at the end of the mobilization, told Telenoche that “today all the women who gathered within the 8M platform, which are around 50 collectives, invited us, especially the women of the Coordinadora de Ollas, to march in front because they considered that at this moment the women of the pots and the neighborhood soup kitchens are the most affected by the great violation of rights that exists in all the neighborhoods at this moment of all kinds that goes far beyond food.”

”At this moment a lot of needs that have to do with housing, education, and healthcare are falling on the women of the 'ollas' (pots) and meal-dispensing 'merenderos' of the neighborhoods because due to the dismantling of public policies in the neighborhoods and a lot of assistance centers of the Mides, people turn their needs to the members of the 'ollas',“ she went on.

The slogan of the Women in Black, which also adhered to this march, was ”For my future and yours”.

Cosse and City Director of Culture María Inés Obaldía were two of the politicians who participated in the mobilization through downtown Montevideo, after which a proclamation was read in front of the building of the University of the Republic.

In the morning, there was an International Women's Day ceremony at the Legislative Palace, headed by National Women's Institute (InMujeres) Director Mónica Bottero, who underlined that women's unemployment dropped by 1.7 % from pre-pandemic figures. She explained that there were 734,000 employed women before the Covid-19 crisis and today there were over 743,000. Inmujeres also reported that for every 100 pesos a man earns, a woman earns 78.4 pesos.

Also marking International Women's Day, Economy Minister Azucena Arbeleche was among the five women awarded a distinction by Madrid's El País newspaper for her leading role among Latin American women guiding the South American country through the sanitary crisis.

According to El País, “in order not to give up the ground gained, Arbeleche implemented a series of measures, among them the extension of unemployment and health insurance.” In addition to that, the Coronavirus Fund was created, partially financed by the temporary reduction of the salaries of the president, ministers, and public officials with the highest salaries.

Other women receiving similar accolades were Mercedes D'Alessandro (National Director of Economics, Equality, and Gender at the Ministry of Economy of Argentina), Mariana Mazzucato (Professor of Economics of Innovation and Public Value at the University of London), Stephany Griffith (Councilor of the Central Bank of Chile since May 2022), Ifigenia Martínez (politician, economist, professor, and Mexican diplomat), and Ana María Ibáñez (Senior Advisor for Economics at the Inter-American Development Bank).