In situations of multidimensional crisis, such as the one our country is going through, those who suffer the most are the lower-income sectors and, in particular, girls, boys and adolescents. The withdrawal of the State and economic deregulation imply greater lack of protection. Guaranteeing the basic right to adequate food, in this context, becomes urgent. So we ask ourselves again: what can and what should we demand from the State in terms of food? Does it make sense to question what kind of food we want in our pots? Or do we have to settle for “what there is”?
“Below, we offer a google translate version of the original article in Spanish. This translation may not be accurate but serves as a general presentation of the article. For more accurate information, please switch to the Spanish version of the website. In addition, feel free to directly contact in English the person mentioned at the bottom of this article with regards to this topic”.
In Argentina, inflation continues to rise. The index of the Social Debt Observatory of the UCA (Argentine Catholic University) showed that the population that does not cover its basic food needs went from 9.4% at the end of the third quarter of 2023, to 15% in January , and that poverty affects 57% of the people in this country. In turn, Indec reported that the Basic Food Basket (BCA) increased 18.6% in January and 296.4% in the last twelve months, above inflation (254.2%). While, according to the Neighborhood Price Index (IBP) of the Social, Economic and Citizen Policy Research Institute (ISEPCi), food prices increased by up to 69.7% since last December. These figures reflect a noticeable increase in indigence and poverty.
To this information, we add that which already alerted us: the quality of life of the Argentine population has been progressively deteriorating. 73.4% of deaths are due to Chronic Non-Communicable Diseases, these are responsible for 52% of the years of life lost due to premature death and 76% of the years of life adjusted for disability. Proper nutrition is one of the main risk factors.
Despite the statistics and the context, the national government, a few days before the start of the year 2024, decided to completely interrupt the supply of food to soup kitchens. Numerous organizations daily denounce that “the pots are empty”, “the food emergency is urgent and necessary” and “there is no freedom when there is nothing on the table”, as well as the double burden they must bear: at times when they least have to offer, is when more people come looking for a plate of food.
This framework encourages us to reflect on the minimum conditions that we must guarantee, such as life and human dignity, for it to make sense to talk about rights such as freedom. Also talk again about the role that the State must play to guarantee these rights. The notion that a present State is necessarily abusive collides with what reality exposes: rights lack satisfaction in the absence of a State that ensures their protection through effective policies.
Food is one of the most basic human needs and is closely linked to people’s life and health. Given its essential and indispensable nature, it was recognized as a fundamental human right in various international human rights treaties that today enjoy constitutional hierarchy in our country. This normative consecration gives rise to imperative and enforceable legal obligations on the head of the State to: respect, protect and guarantee the effective fulfillment of this right.
Food policies in Argentina
In our country, food problems, unfortunately, are not new. When doing a retrospective analysis, it is possible to observe in different historical periods great crises and political tensions regarding the role of the State as guarantor of this right.
Prior to the constitutional reform of 1994, the development of the right to food was largely subordinated to labor law and the living wage, since a privatized reading of food rights and obligations prevailed. However, in the 1980s a different political-social approach began to take hold. Given the context of need that was experienced after the years of military dictatorship, people began to talk about a food emergency, a paradigm based on welfare policies that has prevailed to this day.
Its regulatory consolidation occurred in 2002 when, in response to one of the most acute crises that our country has suffered, the National Food Emergency recognized by Decree No. 108 (01/15/2002) was declared, which has been extended without interruptions until current situation, and which was arranged in order to meet the basic food needs of the population in conditions of vulnerability and with subsistence risks.
Shortly thereafter, Law 25,724 on the Declaration of National Food Emergency was passed, which instituted the National Nutrition and Food Program, known as the National Food Security Plan “The Most Urgent Hunger” (PNSA), intended to cover the minimum nutritional requirements of groups in situations of extreme vulnerability. This law constitutes to this day the main food policy of our country.
From the food emergency to adequate nutrition
More than 20 years after its entry into force, there is plenty of evidence and bibliography to account for the important limitations and deficiencies presented by this paradigm, which limits the treatment of the food issue to a basic level of satisfaction of minimum caloric needs. And, therefore, its inability to generate structural transformations that allow progress towards a state of food security and sovereignty. Also the serious impact on health that can imply that the food programs that have been established, both at the national and provincial levels, do not have good nutritional criteria and standards. This has to do with the fact that emergency strategies tend to ignore the multiple facets that the food problem encompasses in its complexity, including the so-called “triple burden” of malnutrition: hunger and malnutrition, generalized deficiency of micronutrients and malnutrition due to excess. This needs to be addressed as a health problem linked to the consumption of ultra-processed food products with excess critical nutrients.
This lack came to be questioned by Law 27,642 on the Promotion of Healthy Eating, sanctioned in 2021.
The extensive legislative process that was promoted to achieve the enactment of this law generated a fundamental movement in the public debate on food in our country. This law has been established as a bridge between policies that address historical food problems, such as hunger and malnutrition; and those that seek to reverse modern food problems, linked to excess malnutrition and chronic diseases that are caused by the poor quality of the food products consumed today. The latter affects the entire population since it is linked to the transformation of dietary patterns, although surveys indicate that the highest prevalence is found in lower-income economic sectors. For its part, the problem of hunger is directly linked to poverty.
The Law for the Promotion of Healthy Eating, although it does not directly address the problem of lack of food, does establish measures that are fundamental for the transformation of food systems that, directly or indirectly, contribute to greater food security and sovereignty. and generate an improvement in the quality of food assistance. For example, it requires the State that public purchases of food that are destined for soup kitchens where children and adolescents attend, to state agencies and food programs, be made up of healthy foods that do not present warning seals (that is, that they do not have excess sugar, sodium, fat, sweetener or caffeine). It also establishes the importance of encouraging the development of family, peasant and indigenous agriculture.
In this way, the law is positioned, on the one hand, as a valuable instrument to positively impact the health of the most vulnerable sectors of the population, who are those most exposed to the consumption of processed and ultra-processed products. And on the other, to begin to transform the way in which the Argentine State, historically, has constructed its food policies and, more specifically, in its most urgent aspect, that is, hunger. Finally, when thinking about what those who have the least eat, the need to incorporate nutritional criteria and not just the amount of calories was put on the table.
In this framework, key questions were asked about what we are eating; about how the food that reaches our table is produced; about the relationship that exists between what we consume and the diseases we contract, at an increasingly younger age. Questions about what is offered to children and adolescents in schools, which in many cases constitutes the basis of their diet. The question is also enabled about who the State’s suppliers are and what type of production we want to support.
This debate and the conquest of this law, which has had civil society as its protagonist, has meant immense progress in the discussions and food policies of our country, and above all, it provides technical and legal tools to achieve better protection of rights to adequate food and health of the entire population. Society in general echoed the idea that it is no longer about filling bellies but rather about nourishing healthy bodies and minds, nourishing ourselves culturally and emotionally again. And according to the human rights instruments adopted by our country, it is the State that must guarantee that this is the case.
Demand the minimums without giving up the maximums
Currently, these historic advances are at serious risk, just as access to food by a large part of the population is also at risk due to the economic crisis that the country is going through and, above all, due to the shortage policies that they have been suffering. community kitchens and food assistance programs.
The subjugation of social rights seeks to reverse the progress achieved in recent years regarding the debate on food quality because, in the absence of minimum food conditions, immediate needs prevail and the need for structural transformations remain in the background flat.
Now: Is it possible that even in crisis contexts we can think about the food problem in a comprehensive and non-linear way? Is it possible to demand that emergency food policies be urgently implemented and at the same time prioritize the purchase of healthy food for soup kitchens? Of course. It is not only possible but necessary. Fighting for the minimum without giving up the maximum is the way to defend the progress achieved, the rights achieved.
The health effects of purely palliative food policies are irreversible for millions of people who have contracted chronic diseases and disabilities of different types. Today we know the serious consequences on health that come with the consumption of certain products with excess critical nutrients, as well as the lack of variety in the daily diet, the low consumption of fruits and vegetables. For this reason, we cannot settle for “what there is”, we cannot renounce the rights achieved and the progress made in the debate on the type of food we need to develop and live with dignity.
Satisfaction of the right to health, to adequate food, to a decent life cannot be left in the hands of the market, and food cannot be treated as a commodity. It is urgent that the State guarantee that all people can access decent, quality food in sufficient quantity. Quality food should be a right and not a privilege.
*Image source: Colectivo Diciembre
Authors
Maga Merlo Vijarra
María Laura Fons
Contact
Maga Merlo Vijarra, magamerlov@fundeps.org
We launched the guide for reflection and transformation “Rethinking the economy: a feminist perspective”
“Below, we offer a google translate version of the original article in Spanish. This translation may not be accurate but serves as a general presentation of the article. For more accurate information, please switch to the Spanish version of the website. In addition, feel free to directly contact in English the person mentioned at the bottom of this article with regards to this topic”.
In this training cycle we met with a wide diversity of spaces to devise resistance alternatives that put the sustainability of life at the center, among them participated: self-managed organizations, enterprises, cooperatives, unions, academic spaces, workers in the field public-state, civil society organizations, social and feminist movements and interested people in the province.
From this enriching experience that consisted of six instances, we proposed to share a systematization with those interested in embarking on a path of (de)construction on the ways in which we understand and participate in the economy. From a critical perspective, this input seeks not only to understand reality from a complex perspective, but also to contribute to its transformation. To this end, we recover and organize both the theoretical and methodological contributions as well as the reflections, questions and dynamics from which the training meetings were built.
The pedagogical orientation of this guide was designed from a feminist perspective, integrating various tools of popular education, sensitivity and affectivity. It is divided into two parts: the first addresses fundamental conceptual categories to analyze the economy from a feminist perspective; The second includes annexes with activities designed to raise awareness and reinforce said contents. As a closing, some poems are presented that seek to connect the reflections and thoughts developed during the meetings, with our deepest and most sensitive emotions.
In this sense, the guide presents several fundamental conceptual and political contributions, among them: the sexual division of labor and its impact on the labor market; the social organization of care and the reproduction of inequalities; the reconfiguration of statehood from feminist perspectives, including the idea of an Open State. It also covers some bills that represent important precedents for the construction of proposals that could give rise to regulatory frameworks for the recognition of care work in community settings.
This guide, then, becomes a commitment and a political tool to socialize various critical and collective knowledge related to the construction of “another fairer economy” in which we can be participants. We hope that this resource will be useful to generate enriching dialogues between the conceptual assumptions of Feminist Economics and the vital and organizational experiences of those who consult it. We hope that this guide helps to question current living conditions and thus be able to build solid foundations that support and strengthen care practices for the sustainability of life.
DOWNLOAD THE GUIDE HERE
Author
Carola Bertona
Contact
Cecilia Bustos Moreschi, cecilia.bustos.moreschi@fundeps.org
Guide | Rethinking the economy: a feminist perspective
This booklet is a compilation of what we worked on in six meetings held at the Provincial University of Córdoba (UPC) within the framework of the Rethinking the Economy training cycle: a feminist perspective. Between August and October 2023, from Fundeps and the Feminist Economy Space of Córdoba, we carry out this cycle in order to generate a space for mutual learning about the concepts and problems that the Feminist Economy brings us, to devise forms of resistance that put the sustainability of life at the center.
WE SAY AGAIN: NO TO THE BASE LAW
“Below, we offer a google translate version of the original article in Spanish. This translation may not be accurate but serves as a general presentation of the article. For more accurate information, please switch to the Spanish version of the website. In addition, feel free to directly contact in English the person mentioned at the bottom of this article with regards to this topic”.
Contact
Mayca Balaguer, maycabalaguer@fundeps.org
Food industry interference – Report
Food and beverage industry interference is defined as influencing legal frameworks and policy environments in order to delay, weaken or prevent the development of healthy eating policies. These companies and groups related to their interests carry out different actions to intervene in the development of public policies and to influence the academic world and science.
This report seeks to document the case of interference by the food industry in Argentina, within the framework of the debate and sanction of the Law for the Promotion of Healthy Eating (No. 27,642), better known as the Labeling Law, as well as the initiatives developed by civil society to counteract this interference.
This report, carried out with the financial support of the Global Health Advocacy Incubator (GHAI), compiles the views of five civil society organizations that actively and jointly participated in the promotion of the law, and currently continue working towards its correct implementation: the Inter-American Heart Foundation Argentina (FIC Argentina), Consciente Colectivo, the Foundation for the Development of Sustainable Policies (FUNDEPS), the Foundation
SANAR and the Argentine Federation of Nutrition Graduates (FAGRAN). These organizations, free of conflict of interest, began working together in 2021 and provided scientific evidence to justify the choice of labeling. In addition, they carried out advocacy actions with different political decision-makers during all the years in which the policy was debated, and carried out communication campaigns to inform and support the approval of the law.
The fight for decent food in Argentina: perspectives and challenges
“Below, we offer a google translate version of the original article in Spanish. This translation may not be accurate but serves as a general presentation of the article. For more accurate information, please switch to the Spanish version of the website. In addition, feel free to directly contact in English the person mentioned at the bottom of this article with regards to this topic”.
In Argentina, inflation continues to rise. The index of the Social Debt Observatory of the UCA (Argentine Catholic University) showed that the population that does not cover its basic food needs went from 9.4% at the end of the third quarter of 2023, to 15% in January , and that poverty affects 57% of the people in this country. In turn, Indec reported that the Basic Food Basket (BCA) increased 18.6% in January and 296.4% in the last twelve months, above inflation (254.2%). While, according to the Neighborhood Price Index (IBP) of the Social, Economic and Citizen Policy Research Institute (ISEPCi), food prices increased by up to 69.7% since last December. These figures reflect a noticeable increase in indigence and poverty.
To this information, we add that which already alerted us: the quality of life of the Argentine population has been progressively deteriorating. 73.4% of deaths are due to Chronic Non-Communicable Diseases, these are responsible for 52% of the years of life lost due to premature death and 76% of the years of life adjusted for disability. Proper nutrition is one of the main risk factors.
Despite the statistics and the context, the national government, a few days before the start of the year 2024, decided to completely interrupt the supply of food to soup kitchens. Numerous organizations daily denounce that “the pots are empty”, “the food emergency is urgent and necessary” and “there is no freedom when there is nothing on the table”, as well as the double burden they must bear: at times when they least have to offer, is when more people come looking for a plate of food.
This framework encourages us to reflect on the minimum conditions that we must guarantee, such as life and human dignity, for it to make sense to talk about rights such as freedom. Also talk again about the role that the State must play to guarantee these rights. The notion that a present State is necessarily abusive collides with what reality exposes: rights lack satisfaction in the absence of a State that ensures their protection through effective policies.
Food is one of the most basic human needs and is closely linked to people’s life and health. Given its essential and indispensable nature, it was recognized as a fundamental human right in various international human rights treaties that today enjoy constitutional hierarchy in our country. This normative consecration gives rise to imperative and enforceable legal obligations on the head of the State to: respect, protect and guarantee the effective fulfillment of this right.
Food policies in Argentina
In our country, food problems, unfortunately, are not new. When doing a retrospective analysis, it is possible to observe in different historical periods great crises and political tensions regarding the role of the State as guarantor of this right.
Prior to the constitutional reform of 1994, the development of the right to food was largely subordinated to labor law and the living wage, since a privatized reading of food rights and obligations prevailed. However, in the 1980s a different political-social approach began to take hold. Given the context of need that was experienced after the years of military dictatorship, people began to talk about a food emergency, a paradigm based on welfare policies that has prevailed to this day.
Its regulatory consolidation occurred in 2002 when, in response to one of the most acute crises that our country has suffered, the National Food Emergency recognized by Decree No. 108 (01/15/2002) was declared, which has been extended without interruptions until current situation, and which was arranged in order to meet the basic food needs of the population in conditions of vulnerability and with subsistence risks.
Shortly thereafter, Law 25,724 on the Declaration of National Food Emergency was passed, which instituted the National Nutrition and Food Program, known as the National Food Security Plan “The Most Urgent Hunger” (PNSA), intended to cover the minimum nutritional requirements of groups in situations of extreme vulnerability. This law constitutes to this day the main food policy of our country.
From the food emergency to adequate nutrition
More than 20 years after its entry into force, there is plenty of evidence and bibliography to account for the important limitations and deficiencies presented by this paradigm, which limits the treatment of the food issue to a basic level of satisfaction of minimum caloric needs. And, therefore, its inability to generate structural transformations that allow progress towards a state of food security and sovereignty. Also the serious impact on health that can imply that the food programs that have been established, both at the national and provincial levels, do not have good nutritional criteria and standards. This has to do with the fact that emergency strategies tend to ignore the multiple facets that the food problem encompasses in its complexity, including the so-called “triple burden” of malnutrition: hunger and malnutrition, generalized deficiency of micronutrients and malnutrition due to excess. This needs to be addressed as a health problem linked to the consumption of ultra-processed food products with excess critical nutrients.
This lack came to be questioned by Law 27,642 on the Promotion of Healthy Eating, sanctioned in 2021.
The extensive legislative process that was promoted to achieve the enactment of this law generated a fundamental movement in the public debate on food in our country. This law has been established as a bridge between policies that address historical food problems, such as hunger and malnutrition; and those that seek to reverse modern food problems, linked to excess malnutrition and chronic diseases that are caused by the poor quality of the food products consumed today. The latter affects the entire population since it is linked to the transformation of dietary patterns, although surveys indicate that the highest prevalence is found in lower-income economic sectors. For its part, the problem of hunger is directly linked to poverty.
The Law for the Promotion of Healthy Eating, although it does not directly address the problem of lack of food, does establish measures that are fundamental for the transformation of food systems that, directly or indirectly, contribute to greater food security and sovereignty. and generate an improvement in the quality of food assistance. For example, it requires the State that public purchases of food that are destined for soup kitchens where children and adolescents attend, to state agencies and food programs, be made up of healthy foods that do not present warning seals (that is, that they do not have excess sugar, sodium, fat, sweetener or caffeine). It also establishes the importance of encouraging the development of family, peasant and indigenous agriculture.
In this way, the law is positioned, on the one hand, as a valuable instrument to positively impact the health of the most vulnerable sectors of the population, who are those most exposed to the consumption of processed and ultra-processed products. And on the other, to begin to transform the way in which the Argentine State, historically, has constructed its food policies and, more specifically, in its most urgent aspect, that is, hunger. Finally, when thinking about what those who have the least eat, the need to incorporate nutritional criteria and not just the amount of calories was put on the table.
In this framework, key questions were asked about what we are eating; about how the food that reaches our table is produced; about the relationship that exists between what we consume and the diseases we contract, at an increasingly younger age. Questions about what is offered to children and adolescents in schools, which in many cases constitutes the basis of their diet. The question is also enabled about who the State’s suppliers are and what type of production we want to support.
This debate and the conquest of this law, which has had civil society as its protagonist, has meant immense progress in the discussions and food policies of our country, and above all, it provides technical and legal tools to achieve better protection of rights to adequate food and health of the entire population. Society in general echoed the idea that it is no longer about filling bellies but rather about nourishing healthy bodies and minds, nourishing ourselves culturally and emotionally again. And according to the human rights instruments adopted by our country, it is the State that must guarantee that this is the case.
Demand the minimums without giving up the maximums
Currently, these historic advances are at serious risk, just as access to food by a large part of the population is also at risk due to the economic crisis that the country is going through and, above all, due to the shortage policies that they have been suffering. community kitchens and food assistance programs.
The subjugation of social rights seeks to reverse the progress achieved in recent years regarding the debate on food quality because, in the absence of minimum food conditions, immediate needs prevail and the need for structural transformations remain in the background flat.
Now: Is it possible that even in crisis contexts we can think about the food problem in a comprehensive and non-linear way? Is it possible to demand that emergency food policies be urgently implemented and at the same time prioritize the purchase of healthy food for soup kitchens? Of course. It is not only possible but necessary. Fighting for the minimum without giving up the maximum is the way to defend the progress achieved, the rights achieved.
The health effects of purely palliative food policies are irreversible for millions of people who have contracted chronic diseases and disabilities of different types. Today we know the serious consequences on health that come with the consumption of certain products with excess critical nutrients, as well as the lack of variety in the daily diet, the low consumption of fruits and vegetables. For this reason, we cannot settle for “what there is”, we cannot renounce the rights achieved and the progress made in the debate on the type of food we need to develop and live with dignity.
Satisfaction of the right to health, to adequate food, to a decent life cannot be left in the hands of the market, and food cannot be treated as a commodity. It is urgent that the State guarantee that all people can access decent, quality food in sufficient quantity. Quality food should be a right and not a privilege.
*Image source: Colectivo Diciembre
Authors
Maga Merlo Vijarra
María Laura Fons
Contact
Maga Merlo Vijarra, magamerlov@fundeps.org
Actions that transform: see our Annuary 2023
During 2023 we carried out a variety of actions. From advocacy meetings and court filings, to research, conferences and workshops, communications campaigns and more. Each action reflects our determination to transform society and defend human rights.
In addition, at the end of last year, we experienced a major change in our leadership. Carolina Tamagnini, who has led Fundeps for the past 4 years, stepped down as Executive Director to join the Board of Directors and in her place, Mayca Balaguer took over as the new Director.
This change marks not only a transition in leadership, but also a moment of institutional strengthening and renewal, consolidating a dynamic team capable of responding to emerging demands, growing both institutionally and in impact.
What began as an initiative in 2009, today has become a solid organization involved in the defense of human rights, and in 2024. We celebrate 15 years!
Because we are confident that the best way to carry out our work is in a network and collectively, we thank the organizations, communities and individuals who were part of these initiatives. We celebrate with you our progress and invite you to get to know the Yearbook 2023: the collective memory of our commitment to a more just, equitable, sustainable and democratic society.
VIEW ANNUARY 2023
Opening of sessions: it is urgent that Congress reject DNU 70/2023
“Below, we offer a google translate version of the original article in Spanish. This translation may not be accurate but serves as a general presentation of the article. For more accurate information, please switch to the Spanish version of the website. In addition, feel free to directly contact in English the person mentioned at the bottom of this article with regards to this topic”.
At the beginning of the ordinary sessions, we remember that Congress has the duty to reject this decree and all those that in the future exceed the constitutional limits, exercising its role within the system of checks and balances, as well as to guarantee a parliamentary debate of quality that ensures robust citizen participation.
The Executive Branch is prohibited from legislating. Although our National Constitution enables it to issue decrees of necessity and urgency (DNU), it only allows it to do so when there are exceptional circumstances that make it impossible to follow the ordinary procedures provided for the enactment of laws.
Decree 70/2023 does not meet the constitutional requirements for its validity. Sufficient arguments do not emerge from its foundations to account for the circumstances of force majeure that prevent the chambers of Congress from debating each of the reforms included in it, nor is the causal relationship between the identified problems and the measures adequately explained. that are available.
Far from understanding the exceptional nature of the DNU, Decree 70/2023 carries out a massive and systemic legislative reform. Given its magnitude and significance, the regulatory changes included in it can only be discussed by Congress, which is where all political forces are represented, including minority ones.
Additionally, it is the legislative debate that provides opportunities for citizen participation, essential for strengthening the democratic system.
It is precisely to avoid excesses in the use of the power to issue decrees of necessity and urgency that our Constitution designed a subsequent legislative control process through which its validity or invalidity must be determined taking into account their adequacy to the formal and substantial requirements. established by her.
It is essential to highlight that Decree 70/2023 is already in force, projecting itself on substantive aspects of our community life, addressing issues related to health, housing, labor relations, contracts, the economy and finances, among others. These modifications affect the individual and collective rights of millions of people, many of which are already before the courts demanding its suspension and inapplicability for themselves or for the groups they represent.
Organizations:
1. Asociación Civil por la Igualdad y la Justicia (ACIJ)
2. Asociación Ecuménica de Cuyo (FEC)
3. ANDHES
4. Campaña Argentina por el Derecho a la Educación (CADE)
5. Coordinadora de Abogadxs de Interés Público (CAIP)
6. Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales (CELS)
7. Consciente Colectivo
8. Comisión Argentina para Personas Migrantes y Refugiadas (CAREF)
9. Democracia en Red
10. Equipo Latinoamericano de Justicia y Género (ELA)
11. Fundación SES
12. Fundación Protestante Hora de Obrar
13. Fundación Mujeres x Mujeres
14. Fundación Igualdad
15. Fundación Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (FARN)
16. Fundeps
17.Instituto de Estudios Comparados en Ciencias Penales y Sociales (INECIP)
18. Jóvenes por el Clima
19.Red argentina de abogacía comunitaria (RAAC)
20.Xumek
ESI because Yes, guaranteeing Comprehensive Sexual Education is expanding rights
“Below, we offer a google translate version of the original article in Spanish. This translation may not be accurate but serves as a general presentation of the article. For more accurate information, please switch to the Spanish version of the website. In addition, feel free to directly contact in English the person mentioned at the bottom of this article with regards to this topic”.
On February 26, students from across the province of Córdoba will begin a new school year. Those who turn eighteen in 2024 will have the same number of years that will be counted in October from the enactment of Law 26,150, known as the Comprehensive Sexual Education Law (ESI). In this return to school, they hope that ESI will finally be implemented in their classes, so as not to continue being part of the 80% of students who consider that it is not applied adequately in their school, according to the data that emerges from a survey carried out by the Huésped Foundation.
“Comprehensive Sexual Education is an inalienable right of students throughout the country who attend both public and private educational establishments, as established by Law 26,150. Although this law has been in force since 2006, its effective compliance has not been achieved and, furthermore, today this right is threatened by strong disinformation campaigns that circulate both in public opinion and in institutional spaces,” explains Mayca Balaguer, executive director. from Fundeps.
Coinciding with the start of classes, at Fundeps we launch the ESI because Yes awareness campaign, with the aim of making adolescents and young people aware that Comprehensive Sexual Education is their right and that it must be guaranteed in all cases. With clear and precise information, the campaign aims to combat false news, myths and hate speech that circulate on social networks, generating confusion and false beliefs about the content and effective practices of the law in schools.
ESI because Yes, is intended mainly for secondary level students in the province, but also for teachers and educational authorities.
“The teaching role is fundamental: teaching sexual education is essential for the eradication of gender violence, the integration of sexual diversity, the prevention of sexual abuse, teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, among other issues. ESI is not a gender ideology, but rather a systematic and transversal space for teaching and learning, which ensures the transmission of precise, reliable and appropriate scientific knowledge at each evolutionary stage of the students. Teachers are guarantors of rights,” defines Mayca Balaguer.
In Córdoba, the Provincial Education Law (9870) reinforces adherence to national regulations, both in content and knowledge and in values. However, impediments to its application continue to exist in many institutions. That is why we also bet on networking, together with other organizations committed to the promotion of human rights.
“Guaranteeing ESI is expanding rights. It allows students to be formed who are free in thought and choice, with empathy and the ability to live a full sexuality with respectful bonds, since the very definition of Comprehensive Sexual Education stipulated by Law 26,150 contemplates the articulation of biological, psychological, social, emotional and ethical aspects “, confirms our executive director.
The ESI because Yes campaign will be available on the social networks of Fundeps and allied organizations.
Contact
Mayca Balaguer, maycabalaguer@fundeps.org
The National Congress must treat DNU 70/2023 urgently and reject it for violating the National Constitution
“Below, we offer a google translate version of the original article in Spanish. This translation may not be accurate but serves as a general presentation of the article. For more accurate information, please switch to the Spanish version of the website. In addition, feel free to directly contact in English the person mentioned at the bottom of this article with regards to this topic”.
In accordance with what is established by the National Constitution, the Executive Branch is prohibited from issuing legislative provisions. However, our fundamental rule allows that exceptionally, and in accordance with certain requirements, the tool of decrees of necessity and urgency (DNU) be used.
These types of decrees are admissible only when there are exceptional circumstances that make it impossible to follow the ordinary procedures provided for the sanction of the laws. That is, the DNUs proceed when the situation is of such urgency that it must be resolved immediately, within a period incompatible with that required by the normal parliamentary procedure.
It is evident that the foundations of Decree 70/2023 do not meet the requirements for the issuance of a standard of this nature. There are no sufficient arguments to explain the circumstances of force majeure that prevent the chambers of Congress from meeting, nor is it proven that the solution required is incompatible with the legislative debate. In fact, before the decree came into force, the Executive Branch called extraordinary sessions, and today Congress is in session. Furthermore, the causal relationship between the identified problems and the measures available is not explained.
Far from understanding the nature of the tool, DNU 70/2023 carries out a massive and systemic legislative reform. Given its magnitude and significance, the regulatory changes included in it can only be discussed by Congress, which is where all political forces are represented, including minority ones. Additionally, it is the legislative debate that provides opportunities for citizen participation, essential for strengthening the democratic system. In this sense, it must be remembered that, as our Supreme Court of Justice pointed out, “the National Constitution does not allow a discretionary choice between the sanction of a law or the more rapid imposition of certain material contents by means of a decree”.
On the other hand, it is essential to highlight that Decree 70/2023 is already in force, projecting itself on substantive aspects of our community life, addressing issues related to health, housing, labor relations, contracts, economy and finance, among others. These modifications affect the individual and collective rights of millions of people, many of whom are already before the courts demanding their suspension and inapplicability for themselves or for the groups they represent.
It is precisely to avoid excesses in the use of the power to issue decrees of necessity and urgency that our Constitution designed a subsequent legislative control process through which its validity or invalidity is determined taking into account the adequacy of these to the established formal and substantial requirements. constitutionally for its dictation.
Having expired the deadlines established in Law 26,122 for the opinion of the Permanent Bicameral Commission, Congress has the duty to rule on the decree. For this reason, we ask the legislators of both chambers of the National Congress to dedicate themselves to its express and immediate treatment, and reject it for not satisfying the constitutional requirements.
The silence, the wait, the calculations associated with political gain imply an implicit endorsement of a conduct that ostensibly goes beyond the contours of our fundamental norm. In defense of the Constitution, the system of checks and balances, justice and legal security, Congress is called to ensure that the Executive Branch operates within the limits of the rule of law. The duty to our National Constitution and to citizens must prevail over any other consideration.
Organizations:
1st Congress of Food Policies in Argentina: Implementation of the Front Labeling Law
This report summarizes the main contents and challenges addressed in the first congress dedicated to the implementation of the Healthy Eating Promotion Law. Through thematic tables and debates, strategies were explored to improve the application of these regulations throughout the country. Includes testimonies and practical tools to strengthen the right to healthy eating in Argentina.
Democracy is cared for inside and outside Congress
“Below, we offer a google translate version of the original article in Spanish. This translation may not be accurate but serves as a general presentation of the article. For more accurate information, please switch to the Spanish version of the website. In addition, feel free to directly contact in English the person mentioned at the bottom of this article with regards to this topic”.
The police operation deployed in front of Congress, while it was in session, was violent and excessive, outside the current regulations for action in response to demonstrations. It was organized by the Ministry of National Security, with an excessive deployment of different forces that caused injuries from rubber bullets, irritating gases with an unprecedented capacity for damage, and blows from tonfas. In a historical regression, there were police with firearms, something that had been avoided in all governments more than 20 years ago. The police intimidated older people, left around thirty journalists with injuries of varying severity, and attacked human rights defenders and protesters from different political sectors. Threatening freedom of expression and demonstration, it advanced in the streets, on the sidewalks and in the plaza.
Within Congress, the regulations are violated: days of debate pass on an opinion that is not known, which is being written outside the committees as the sessions progress. These irregularities, in the face of society, deteriorate the institutions. Furthermore, as expressed in the bill, the delegated powers requested by the Executive Branch could impact legislative paralysis and expanded margins of arbitrariness given the vague, general and elusive way in which they are expressed.
The democratic conditions of debate and coexistence are today deeply tense and rarefied. While legislators debate the destiny of the country and its economic and natural resources in record time, the highest officials publish messages that celebrate and encourage police violence and violence by particular groups.
Signing:
Andhes (Abogados y Abogadas del Noroeste Argentino en Derechos Humanos y Estudios Sociales)
Asociación Ecuménica de Cuyo (FEC)
ELA (Equipo argentino de justicia y género)
Fundeps (Fundación para el Desarrollo de Políticas Sustentables)
CELS (Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales)
Fundación Protestante Hora de Obrar
Asociación para la promoción y protección de los Derechos Humanos Xumek
Fundación SES
Fundación Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (FARN)
CAREF – Comisión Argentina para personas Refugiadas y Migrantes
Consciente Colectivo
Red Argentina de Abogacía Comunitaria (RAAC)
Campaña Argentina por el Derecho a la Educación (CADE)
Tobacco Control Framework Convention – Infographic 2
LET’S NOT STAY OUT.
Argentina is the only Mercosur country that has not ratified the Framework Convention for Tobacco Control, despite having one of the highest addiction prevalence rates in the region. This infographic explains what tools this treaty would provide us in the fight against smoking and why its ratification is urgent.