GI-ESCR participates in consultative meetings for the second national plan of human rights in Chile

The Global Initiative for Social, Economic and Cultural Rights (GI-ESCR) was one of the civil society organisations that joined the participative process for drafting the Second National Plan on Human Rights 2022-2026. Valentina Contreras, GI-ESCR’S representative in Chile, joined the meetings.

The plan is a state policy defined by Chilean Law, and its objective is to prioritise a series of measures for the next four years to address the main challenges the country faces in Human Rights. Thus, the plan includes specific actions, goals, institutions in charge and funding for those actions.

For this purpose, the Undersecretary of Human Rights convened fourteen thematic groups to discuss and devise the national plan. GI-ESCR joined two groups: economic and social rights and women’s rights. Other organisations that participated in this process were Chile Sustentable, Fundación Gente de la Calle y Asociación Yo Cuido, among others.

Valentina Contreras, GI-ESCR’s representative in Chile, explained some of the conclusions of these meetings:

“The main challenge of this plan is the true incorporation of the economic, social, cultural and environmental rights framework. This should be expressed in the use of the plan as a tool for the progressive implementation of these rights, for the promotion of a fiscal policy with a human rights approach, the introduction of a gender perspective in all aspects of these rights, with a particular emphasis in marginalised groups like unpaid carer women and those in homelessness. Also, it implies the implementation of actions based on up to date and empirical evidence that help to design services adequate to people needs, not the State needs”.

The first National Plan of Human Rights in Chile was presented in 2018 under Michelle Bachelet’s administration. The document includes more than 600 actions in 15 areas like land justice, women’s rights, business and human rights, dictatorship, and memory. More than 30% of those activities have been completed, while the 57% are under implementation.

The second version of this national plan will exclude references to business’ obligations because they will be addressed by the new Plan of Business and Human Rights in charge of the Undersecretary of Human Rights. GI-ESCR is part of the Chilean civil society platform of Human Rights and Business, whose goal is to influence the drafting of this plan. Ciudadanía Inteligente, la Comisión Chilena de Derechos Humanos, Greenpeace, Chile Sustentable y ONG Fima are some of the organisations participating in this coordination.