Mabel Bianco, Argentina

Photo by Peter Hamblin

“When we started the Foundation for Studies and Research on Women (FEIM) in 1989, we decided to make women's sexual and reproductive rights our priority. So we immediately began working with women, and we also immediately began working with the media. We felt it was most important to put the issue to society, to get people talking. The debate on abortion, for example, had become very ideological. It wasn't about human beings. So we said, 'look, women—especially poor women—are dying from unsafe abortion,' and we gave the media specific cases to pay attention to. This had great impact. By 1992, the press were calling us. Today, sexual and reproductive rights are still most challenging for the women's movement. And with the current economic and social crisis, I fear that Argentina will become much more fundamentalist. It's becoming increasingly difficult for activists to do their work. Our organizations are suffering, and as individuals we are suffering as well."

About Mabel

A leading advocate for women's rights in Argentina and worldwide for more than four decades, Mabel Bianco is founder and director of FEIM, the Foundation for Studies and Research on Women, based in Buenos Aires. FEIM is regarded as an authority on the status of women and girls, and advises both government bodies and nongovernmental organizations regarding women's sexual and reproductive rights. A medical doctor and epidemiologist by training, Mabel joined the newly democratic government in 1984 as an advisor under the Ministry of Health and Social Action and immediately created a program that successfully fought to lift a ban against family planning in national health care. Later, when she became the director of the National AIDS Program, Mabel drew attention to women's vulnerability to HIV infection, advanced prevention efforts, and coordinated the first regional forum on HIV/AIDS in Rio de Janeiro. She has participated in the creation and leadership of various coalitions, including the National Network of Women's Health, HERA (Health, Empowerment, Rights, and Accountability) and the Latin America and Caribbean Women's Health Network.

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