INTERNATIONAL: Top UN Official: 'Gender Equality is Not a Luxury'

Michelle Bachelet has many firsts on her CV.

The daughter of an army general who died after months of torture by Augusto Pinochet's forces, Bachelet was herself tortured before being exiled. Upon her return, although trained as a doctor, she joined political organizations to restore democracy in Chile. In 2002 she became the country's and Latin America's first female Defense Minister. In 2006 she was elected as Chile's first female president. When she left office four years later, she was probably one of the few heads of state enjoying great approval from its citizens. Her public approval was around 70 percent in her last days in office.

She has recently added a new first to the list. She is the first head of the U.N. Women, an organization dedicated to gender equality that was established in July 2010. Bachelet, who started working as the executive director of U.N. Women in January, was in Turkey last week to attend the U.N. Summit of Least Developed Countries, or LDCs. Turkish President Abdullah Gül met Bachelet and came away with two proposals. “Turkey is proposing to open a U.N. Women's regional office in Turkey. We will take this very generous proposal into consideration when we make our decision,” she said, adding that the second proposal is to host a new women's summit in Turkey. “The last summit, the fourth world conference on women in Beijing, was held in 1995. There is growing demand from civil society for a new conference and again Turkey is generous enough to offer to host this conference if the decision is taken,” she said. Bachelet also said they talked with Gül about how women in Turkey lagged behind in terms of political representation, adding that U.N. Women will start a new project in Ankara for women's participation in politics.

Gender equality as luxury

Recalling the former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's statement that there is no tool for development more effective than the empowerment of women, I asked her if the summit was endorsing that philosophy, or that when the issue is access to basic rights like clean water and gender equality, might it look like a luxury?

“I believe there is some awareness. The importance of gender equality was raised by many participants,” she said, adding that gender equality is not a luxury since investing in women means investing in the future of a country. Saying that the concept of “smart economics” is proposed for development, she argued that women's empowerment provided a win-win situation, since the country as well benefited from it. “When a woman earns an income, she uses it to take care of her children for example, thus she contributes to future generations,” she said. “Gender equality is not a luxury, it is an imperative, a need to have sustainable development.”

Bachelet has set up five thematic priorities for U.N. Women. The first one is political empowerment that is expanding women's voice, leadership and participation in all sectors.

On paper, it looks easier said than done. But a long-time champion of women's rights, Bachelet herself introduced gender policies when she was in power. As a defender of positive discrimination she formed half of her Cabinet from women. But when the administration faced some troubles she had to replace some female ministers with male ones. “Those who are against quotas and positive discrimination are saying that there are not enough qualified women and that unqualified women might be appointed for the sake of positive discrimination. Can they use this to reshuffle the Cabinet?” I asked.

“Those who are against quotas, why don't they ask whether all male are 100 percent qualified,” she replied, adding that she only changed a few female ministers. “There are great men and great women. If there is a great women to replace a former male person, I would appoint a women, if I cannot find a great woman for that job, than I'd appoint a great man and when there is another occasion I would appoint another great women to another post. This should come naturally,” she said.

The road to women's political empowerment passes through recognizing women's skills, she said.

“First of all I know that women are able. Second you need to show that women are able, so you need to give them a chance to show they can. You need to change the mindset and acknowledge the capacity, the skills and the merit of half of the population,” she said, adding an anecdote about her trip to South Africa during the 2010 World Cup. “Ignoring women is like ignoring half of the population. It is like only half of the national teams showing up in the World Cup.”

But life also has to be made easy for women to have the chance to show their skills. There is a need to reconcile the private and public lives that require policies like providing easy access to child care centers, according to Bachelet.

As president her initiatives included tripling the number of free child-care centers for low-income families as well as completing more than 300 childcare centers around the country.

Her decision to save billions of dollars in revenue from copper sales during the last commodity boom gave the country money to spend on pension reform and her ambitious program of social protections for women and children, despite the financial crisis.

For her the key to good governance comes from seeking the broadest agreement on an issue. “I set up a broad advisory commission with lots of stakeholders.” In contrast to cases when it takes sometimes years to adopt a law on sensitive matters, the bill for the social security reform that was shaped by the report of that commission became a law very quickly and started to be implemented in a very short time.

Religion a barrier to women's empowerment

Bachelet's current task is very challenging since she will be dealing with the problem of half of world's population. “Some problems are common. Sexual violence for instance is a global issue. It does not make a difference whether it is in a rich or poor country, democratic or less developed. But problems can differ from region to region where we will adopt specific approaches to specific issues, she said.

I asked her whether she sees religion, Islam or Christianity as a barrier to women's empowerment, since religious customs in certain countries negatively affect the status of women. While I was asking this question I was aware that as a professed agnostic and single mother of three, Bachelet shattered the mold of traditional Chilean politicians in a Roman Catholic stronghold.

“We respect all beliefs as long as they don't harm women. And if you go to the texts no religion intends to harm women,” she said adding that U.N. Women is working with religious leaders to analyze and change certain social norms. “On genital mutilation, we have some religious leaders championing the fight against this practice cooperating with mothers. We always at look how we can work with different leaders to reform certain norms.”