06/13/2025 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 06/13/2025 20:20
Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores | June 13, 2025 | Press Release
The Government of Mexico, working with the Ministries of Women and Foreign Affairs and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), held the Presentation and Signing of the Host Agreement for the XVI Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean. The conference will take place in Mexico City from August 12-15, 2025, under the theme "Transformations in political, economic, social, cultural and environmental spheres to advance the care society and gender equality."
Mexico welcomes this feminist gathering after 50 years since hosting the First World Conference on Women in 1975, which launched the global discussion, concentrated efforts and built regional and international alliances for gender equality and against violence.
Secretary of Women Citlalli Hernández Mora urged the international community to unite with one clear voice against the setbacks and violence that women face in many parts of the world and throughout our region.
She explained that this Conference occurs during a complex global moment, where "various conservative anti-rights forces are attempting to reverse decades of struggle by many feminists, many women and men who have aspired to a more egalitarian society, who try to roll back normative advances and institutional construction in favor of substantive equality, women's autonomy and sexual and reproductive rights."
Hernández Mora described the national context surrounding this Conference, noting that we have the first woman president of Mexico and North America. "This Regional Conference will take place in a Mexico that is transforming itself, that places above all else the poorest people. The poorest people in this country, and in many parts of the world, are women," she added.
Regarding cultural change, Hernández Mora said: "I believe there is much to change from the roots and that is why we are committed to a cultural change in which we will have to return to our origins, to our community perspectives to achieve that longed-for peace that is urgent in Mexico, in our region and in the world."
"Feminism stopped being resistance and today must be at the forefront in the fight against the anti-rights agenda, because feminism poses and questions in a profound and radical way all the structures that exclude and oppress," concluded Secretary Citlalli Hernández.
Representing Secretary Juan Ramón de la Fuente, Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs María Teresa Mercado assured that Mexico works to place women at the center of public decisions.
She highlighted that Mexican Humanism reminds us that no society prospers if it leaves behind more than half of its population, which is why eliminating the gender gap constitutes a moral imperative. Mexico has therefore been a pioneer in promoting an equality agenda in the region and worldwide, pursuing goals such as wage equality, equitable access to technology, the creation of national care systems and effective parity in all decision-making spaces, she specified.
Mercado emphasized that Mexico's feminist foreign policy ensures all diplomatic actions work to guarantee substantive equality for everyone, based on the recognition that in Latin America and the Caribbean, women dedicate more than triple the time that men do to attending to unpaid domestic and care work.
ECLAC Executive Secretary José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs added in his message that "the Regional Conference on Women is today the cultural heritage of Latin America and the Caribbean. Since 1977, its meetings have created a Regional Gender Agenda unique worldwide, serving as a progressive roadmap that shapes countries' public policies."
Secretary Salazar-Xirinachs also noted that "it leads internationally, becoming the first intergovernmental forum to recognize the right to care and recently supporting ECLAC's proposal to advance toward the care society, a paradigm that the region shares with the world and transforms into care policies and systems in member countries."
Mexico City Mayor Clara Brugada Molina attended as witness of honor for the signing. She explained that the City has a feminist heart, having led major victories like becoming the first to pass laws on women's right to choose and establish public care rights.
Mayor Brugada Molina announced that Mexico City is preparing to welcome a thousand women from Latin America and the Caribbean to discuss the structural changes needed to build a caring city with equality. She added that Mexico City can serve as a model for public care systems.
Other attendees included Director General of Human Rights and Democracy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Jennifer Feller Enríquez and Coordinator of Liaison and Follow-up of the Ministry of Women Viridiana Hernández Rivera.