Education Minister Antonio Peña Mirabal says that the drafting of gender equality policy and new actions in the education curriculum is a go. He said that he will not back down and the only way the measure will be dropped is “if President Danilo Medina fires me.”
Peña Mirabal said that the departmental order on gender policy follows a constitutional mandate sustained in Article 39 of the Dominican Constitution. Art. 39 reads: “All necessary steps shall be taken to ensure the eradication of inequality and discrimination due to gender.”
Peña Mirabal said this action had been agreed in the Pact for Education that was signed by all sectors of society. Among those signing the Pact were the representative of the Conference of the Dominican Episcopate, Monsignor Ramón Benítez Ángeles Fernández; the president of CODUE, Reverend Fidel Lorenzo; the president of the Union of Catholic Schools, José Cuello; Lester Flaquer, the president of a Christian private schools association. These organizations now oppose the announced drafting of gender policy by the Ministry of Education.
In statements to the TV program Hoy Mismo, Peña Mirabal categorically denied that this motion is about instating gender ideology. He said: “It is about gender equity. That means that boys and girls are taught that they have the same rights and the same opportunities. I don’t see where the evil is in that.”
“The Ministry of Education is going to implement policies of equality between boys and girls, equal opportunities, rights and duties between the two sexes. That this is to guarantee that 99% of the janitors not be women, and that 99% of the porters not be men, as is the situation today,” he said.
Read more:
Diario Libre
HRW
6 June 2019