Of the 226 SOEs whose senior positions are known, only 27 are headed by women, according to data published in Vendata.

The information registered in the database shows that there are women who preside over a state company and at the same time hold other high positions in the public administration.

Transparency Venezuela, February 7, 2019. On repeated occasions, the presidents Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro defined themselves as feminists and insisted on the need to make women visible and include them in areas and functions that were mainly intended for men, however, when choosing the highest authorities of the conglomerate of State-Owned Companies the rulers did not think the same.

According to the Phase II State-Owned Companies investigation, carried out by Transparency Venezuela and presented in November 2018, of the 226 companies whose boards of directors are known, only 81 have women in senior positions.

The data of each one of the companies can be consulted in Vendata, the largest open data platform in the country, promoted in partnership by the Venezuelan Press and Society Institute (IPYS Venezuela) and Transparencia Venezuela.

The information published in Vendata It also refers that of the group of companies that report on the composition of their board of directors, 26 have a woman as the highest authority. In other words, only 12% of companies are headed by women.

genderless irregularities

The data also shows that there are women who preside over state companies and at the same time hold other positions within the public administration, an irregular practice that has become common in the last 20 years in Venezuela and that reduces opportunities for other people.

The case of Yomana Koteich Khatib, who is Minister of Foreign Trade and also chairs the Foreign Trade Bank and the National Center for Foreign Trade, stands out, as published in the Official Gazette No. 41.422. dated June 19, 2018, which can also be consulted at Vendata.

The data indicates that companies led by women belong to the agri-food, manufacturing, mining, metallurgy, financial, health, communications, hydrocarbons, and transportation sectors.

Most of the companies run by women were created or confiscated during the Chávez and Maduro governments, and are operational, at least according to what could be verified when the investigation of Phase II State-Owned Companies was carried out.

The high level of government opacity and secrecy has prevented the boards of directors of the rest of the State-Owned Companies from being known. The companies are not accountable and the ministries to which they are attached have not published their Report and Account since 2015.

Much to do

The information registered in Vendata regarding the presence of women on boards of directors of SOEs is one more piece of information that shows that, contrary to Chavismo's discourse, female participation in senior positions in state companies is very low. Another sign that the claim of women, their rights and opportunities ended in a lot of rhetoric and few results.

The gender approach in public policies served to hinder electoral processes, but not to reduce, for example, the high rates of adolescent pregnancy that Venezuela leads throughout the region. I know it gave women greater participation in political arenas but the institutions lack public policies with a gender focus: there are no indicators of reproductive and maternal health, nor was there any deepening of other key issues such as productive and reproductive work, sexual division of labor, practical needs and strategic interests by gender and mainstreaming of the gender approach.

In the current context, what we see is a feminization of poverty, given the deterioration of living conditions in terms of income poverty that affects the majority of women in many essential areas for their development: social, labor, family .

Creating a Ministry for Women in 2009 was not enough.