The President of the Government of Catalonia, Pere Aragonès, claimed this afternoon that there is a need for “every day to be 8 March”, reiterating that the purpose of this day is “to visualise the feminist struggle” and rights “for all women”.

The head of the Executive and the Catalan Minister for Equality and Feminisms, Tània Verge, led the institutional act organised by the Government of Catalonia on the occasion of International Women’s Day, commemorated on 8 March. In this sense, Pere Aragonès stated that “our country has consolidated itself, in many other areas too, but as a global leader in the sphere of feminism and feminist policies” while also recognising that “there is still a great deal of work to be done".

In this regard, he explained that the Catalan Government created the Ministry of Equality and Feminisms three years ago, and that “its objective is not to concentrate all equality and women’s rights policies in a single ministry, but rather to exercise collective leadership through one ministry, making it a commitment of all government ministries and departments”.

President Aragonès noted that the campaign La meva regla, les meves regles (My period, my rules) makes Catalonia “a pioneering country worldwide by ensuring free, reusable menstrual products”, an initiative whose success, according to the head of the Executive, “demonstrates that it was absolutely necessary”.

Aragonès reiterated the advances made in recent years in Catalonia, such as granting leave for perinatal bereavement and menstrual pain, “ensuring the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy throughout Catalonia and the Plan against Obstetric Violence”, without forgetting the fight against gender-based violence, in which he announced “an increase in the number of people, in this case psychologists, working in the care of victims of gender-based violence”.

The head of the executive noted that “in the face of hate speech against feminism, more rights and freedoms for all”. “Feminism today in Catalonia and throughout the world helps us make a better country and a better world, free of inequality, free of racism, free of injustice, free of discrimination, free of violence” he concluded.

During the event, the Minister Verge stressed the importance of the victories achieved by feminist mobilisations, “such as recognition by the international community in the 1990s that sexual and reproductive rights are human rights”. In this regard, Verge reiterated the central role of sexual and reproductive rights “in the struggle to free ourselves from the patriarchy in all areas of our lives”, given that “the right to one’s own body is the most essential right of all for women’s emancipation”.