Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard inaugurated a workshop on a protocol for addressing, preventing and punishing sexual harassment (DOF 2020) this Wednesday at the Foreign Ministry, together with Public Administration Secretary Irma Eréndira Sandoval, and the president of the National Women's Institute, Nadine Gasman Zylbermann.
The workshop was coordinated by the Foreign Ministry's Gender Unit and designed to train senior Foreign Ministry officials, the Gender Focal Point Network, the Ethics Committee, the Internal Audit Unit, and the diplomatic corps accredited in Mexico on the protocol that was just published on January 3, 2020 in the Official Journal of the Federation.
At the inauguration, Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard signed the Zero Tolerance Statement on Sexual Harassment in the Foreign Ministry, in compliance with the criteria established by the new protocol. He reaffirmed the ministry's commitment to combating all forms of discrimination and violence against women, saying that in this ministry, "harassment is cause for a loss of confidence."
“Society can't be changed if we can't achieve substantive equality. That is why I said in the UN General Assembly that the Government of Mexico is a feminist government, because it sustains and promotes a great social transformation. It could not be done if we didn't address equality as soon as possible, not as an ideal but as an agenda," said the foreign secretary in his remarks.
He also warned that sexual harassment goes against the essence of human dignity, people's freedom and the very basis of a society, so if we want to be a community we have to be “intolerant, in this case, we can't allow it, we can't live with this." He added that “Everything that goes against substantive equality offends us and calls us to action.”
The workshop was given by María Margarita Cortés Cid, director of the INMUJERES National System for Equality between Women and Men, and Claudia Ruth Flores Zúñiga, director of Monitoring and Evaluation at the Public Administration Ministry. Both have extensive experience in mainstreaming the gender perspective in public institutions.
The workshops addressed three topics: 1. “Equality as a vehicle of transformation”, taught by Cortés Cid; 2. “Public service, equality and non-violence”, by Flores Zúñiga; and 3. “Priorities for implementing the protocol for the prevention, attention to and punishment of sexual harassment”, moderated by both officials.
The Foreign Ministry is the first area of the federal government to be trained in the new protocol, an important step that has as a priority the elimination of all forms of violence and discrimination against women at work and in all interactions.
José Antonio Domínguez Carballo, head of the Administration and Finance Unit, made some closing remarks and gave out certificates of participation with the Director General of the Foreign Service and Human Resources, Moisés Poblanno, and the head of the Gender Equality Unit, Claudia Stefanie Serna Hernández.
