00:00Let's stay on topic and go deeper in the analysis of Honduras' upcoming general elections.
00:04We are going live to Honduras with our special envoy, Jorge Hostoso.
00:08Welcome once more to From the South.
00:11Luis Alberto, thank you very much.
00:13We are here in Tegucigalpa, 48 hours away from the electoral day of Sunday.
00:21We are having an election, and we would like to see where the woman fits in this electoral process
00:29and in order to help us to put in perspective the role of women in Honduras and the political spectrum,
00:37we have the honor to have with us Diana Savillon.
00:41She is a member of Luchemos, which is a feminist political organization.
00:47Diana, thanks very much for joining us.
00:49Thank you, Jorge, for the invitation, and Tela Sur as well.
00:52Diana, where is and has been the woman in this political process towards the election of Sunday?
01:02I think that women have been the center of these elections precisely because one of the most important things
01:11that have happened to women here in Honduras has been having the first female president,
01:18Xiomara Castro, that represents a Libre Party, right?
01:23Libertad y Refundación, our party, our progressive government.
01:27So we always talked about how women have been the center of this revolution as well
01:34and for the project of our government.
01:39So I think that we definitely positioned that conversation in the political discussion,
01:48public political discussion here in Honduras.
01:51And, well, the far-right opposition has been trying to instrumentalize what we've been doing
01:58and the narrative that Xiomara Castro does not defend women
02:03or that the Libre Party does not defend women.
02:06Is it true or not?
02:07It's not true.
02:10First of all, we have our second candidate, presidential candidate,
02:14that is a woman, Rixi Moncada,
02:17and also who has talked about this in her proposal as a presidential candidate, right?
02:25She talks about a national strategy to reduce femicides,
02:30also access to credits, support to entrepreneurs,
02:34and other things that have a big impact in women's lives.
02:40In the case of femicides, a subject that you brought up,
02:44we are talking information about revealed this week precisely
02:49because of the day of the fight against violence against women
02:56that the United Nations revealed.
02:59And we're talking, according to that information,
03:01close to 4,000 femicides would take place in Latin America,
03:0611 per day.
03:08And Honduras is one of the countries with a very high figure.
03:12Tell us about how present is femicides in the life of this country.
03:17Well, I think that that topic is a really important one worldwide, right,
03:23because violence against women hasn't changed that much,
03:28especially I think it grows when women decide to be part of the public life, right?
03:36So Honduras has been a very violent country due to the narco state that we had,
03:43the dictatorship that we had after the coup in 2009 that ousted President Manuel Zelaya Rosales.
03:52And who was a progressive?
03:55Who was a progressive leader and still is one of the most brilliant minds here in Honduras.
04:00And he was a founder of the presidential party with the candidate Ritchie Moncada is running with.
04:06Yes, and, well, Xiomara Castro has been his partner for a while now.
04:15So it has been a really important topic.
04:19It's difficult to talk about how to change that since it's a structural problem.
04:25It's a system, a systemic problem.
04:29So what people don't know because the media is controlled by the elite here in Honduras
04:37is that while they have been generating the perception that femicides have gone up in this government,
04:45the government of a first female president, that's not true.
04:49And it's not that our government is saying that, it's observatories, national observatories are saying
04:58that femicides have gone down here in Honduras in this period of time.
05:03So definitely women were making some quote-unquote progress, if you want to use that word,
05:11during the presidency of the first female president of the United, of the, of Honduras.
05:19And she is the wife of the former president, Manuel Zelaya.
05:24We're talking about Xiomara Castro.
05:26Yes, women have gone up, women's life have gone getting better here in Honduras,
05:36even though maybe you can't notice it because every time we talk about women,
05:42people always think that we are only talking about sexual and reproductive rights, for example.
05:47But it's also access to credits that the president has given to thousands of women,
05:59access to education, to health services, with new hospitals, schools that have been repaired,
06:10all that it has an impact, a direct impact in women's lives.
06:13What about the workspace, the workforces? Are the women treated equally?
06:20Well, that's a debt we have still. It has been a little bit difficult,
06:25and I think that because women have gone, like, conquering more spaces, it also has a backlash, right?
06:36And sometimes that provokes violence when women want to change their environment.
06:44So I think that we've had those reactions while women go, are evolving in their work spaces
06:54and getting more leadership roles.
06:56There's somehow an effect in that violence, but I think that we've been trying to change that.
07:07Equal pay for men and women, or still differences?
07:12I think there's still differences.
07:13In the government, in the public administration, we've been making some changes,
07:18but the private enterprise, well, they do what they want, so it's a little more complicated to change that.
07:27So at least would you say that according to your assessment,
07:33during the four years of President Xiomara Castro, there's more awareness of women,
07:39the role of women, the problems of women, the challenges, the violence that women go through in the last four years,
07:48and that has been inherited in the proposals of her successor, the candidate Ritzi Moncada?
07:57Yes, I think that we've managed to make it a very important topic here nationwide.
08:05You see the local news sources, they're talking about women, they're talking about the challenges we have,
08:15but also we talk about how lives have been changed here.
08:22And the proposal of our candidate, Ritzi Moncada, also guarantees that women will keep conquering more in her government.
08:32Diana, thank you very much.
08:34Thank you for having me.
08:36We're talking with Diana Savillon.
08:39She is a member of Luchemos.
08:42We're talking about the feminist political organization here in Honduras.
08:47And she was helping us to put in perspective how the role of women has been much more present
08:54in the last four years with the president, the first female president, Xiomara Castro,
09:00and in the agenda of her candidate.
09:03We're talking about Ritzi Moncada from the Libre Party.
09:09Now we get back to you, Luis Alberto.
09:12Thank you so much for the opportunity.
09:14Yes, please.
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