Mexico’s Feminist Foreign Policy Comes to Belize

With her election victory in 2024, Claudia Sheinbaum became Mexico’s first female President. Now Mexico’s approach to diplomacy is putting gender equality at the center of its foreign policy. Special Envoy Rosanna Briceno and the National Women’s Commission held a meeting with the Embassy of Mexico in Belize today at the Laing building in Belize City, where Ambassador Luisa Vallejo Barba made a special presentation exploring Mexico’s Feminist Foreign Policy. The discussion examined how the policy promotes women’s empowerment, gender parity in parliament and an end to discrimination. News Five was there and asked how this approach is shaping Mexico’s engagement with countries like Belize. Here’s what we learned.

 

Luisa Vallejo Barba, Ambassador of Mexico

 “So every secretary, ministry or institution has to talk about gender in a transactional way. And maybe we don’t have a specific budget to get new women participate but the people that already were participating they have new opportunities to get more balance. And I think that is very important because they are given opportunity for new visions And as I said, most of the laws and advance we have, have been coming for years and years. But right now we have had a real change with quota. It’s not the most fantastic way because even in my case, I wasn’t like very proud that I arrived because a quota. I was working very hard. I have more than thirty years working in the ministry and just right now I had the opportunity. But I have to be thankful because finally I had this opportunity and now I have to prove myself. It’s not because I had the opportunity, I’m going to relax. The, the, the quota has to be proven – validated, exactly.”

 

H.E. Rosanna Briceño, Special Envoy for Families and Children

“I know that our ladies here have learned a lot. And I can see Miss Eleanor and the women here processing this because I think it is so important. We understand what you are saying. It is happening globally. We live it every day. I can relate to everything that you would share and more. When we hear the word feminism, we always think of some crazy woman out there creaming and making noise but it’s not so. Our use of the word feminism is we just want people to know we are women and we are strong. We can do what you can do. Like you said, the equality and more because we cook and you eat.”

 

Mexico has achieved near-equal gender parity in its parliament through mandatory constitutional reforms, reaching roughly fifty percent representation of women in both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. Only eight of Belize’s forty-four parliamentarians are women.

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

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