The Costa Rican Alda Facio spoke on “Women’s Human Rights in international protection systems” to around 80 participants via videoconference.

Organised by the Escuela La Tribu, a master class was held on Saturday 6 August, led by the feminist lawyer and expert in women’s human rights, Alda Facio, who spoke about the history of the feminist legal struggle and the challenges in this regard. She also answered questions and talked with women, mostly students of the Diploma in Menstrual Health of this version 2022, graduates, former students, teachers and from various foundations who registered with free invitation.

On the occasion, Patricia Mieres, director of the La Tribu School, expressed how honoured her team was to have this important speaker take part in the Diploma in Menstrual Health.
Menstrual Health with a master class on “Women’s Human Rights in International Protection Systems”, especially considering the dangers of regressions in this area of girls’ and women’s rights in the region (as an example of what happened with regard to abortion in the USA).

In her presentation, Alda Facio explained how women’s rights were declared part of human rights at the Vienna Conference in 1993, and also spoke of the importance of the struggle for reproductive rights, women’s suffrage, the right to be treated as rational beings, equality and the controversies to ensure that article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights included non-discrimination based on sex, among many other issues.

He also explained the difference between legal rights and human rights, and how the State must be the guarantor of the protection of these above all else. All very important issues for Chile, due to the discussion of the new Constitution, which, according to Mieres, “is the only way we have to recognise these rights and for them to acquire the legality they deserve”.

La Tribu School is the first interdisciplinary school specialising in women’s health, dedicated to the formation and specialisation of professionals who work with girls, adolescents and women in all areas. As a reference in the field of Sexual and Reproductive Health, Menstrual Health and Sexuality from a gender and human rights approach, they have already trained more than 5,000 professionals from all over Latin America, created the first and only Diploma in Menstrual Health in the world, with two editions (2021 and 2022) and are also authors of the First Ministerial Guide on Menstrual Health, worked together with the Ministry of Women and Gender Equality and the Ministry of Health of Chile.

Alda Facio

Feminist, jurist, writer, teacher and international expert on gender and human rights, a reference in Latin America. Founder and academic director of the WHRI (Women’s Human Rights Institute). Founder and president of the Fundación Justicia y Género. Former Executive Director of the Women’s Caucus for Gender Justice at the International Criminal Court. She was part of the Working Group on Discrimination Against Women & Girls composed of five Special Rapporteurs of the UN Human Rights Council, one of the promoters of the Social Equality Act in the 1980s, as well as a member of the Women’s Human Rights Council.
She was also one of the 10 women in the world who organised the Tribunal in Vienna on the violation of women’s rights. She participated in the drafting of the Optional Protocol to CEDAW, the UN Declaration on Violence against Women and the Belem do Para Convention.