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There does not have to be trade-off between growth and social protection. A democracy does not mean much if it doesn't respond to the needs and will of its people.

Michelle Bachelet

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Michelle Bachelet
Age: 73
Born: 1951
Born: September 29
Epidemiologist
Politician
President Of Chile
Surgeon
Verónica Michelle Bachelet Jeria
Veronica Michelle Bachelet Jeria
People
Growth
Democracy
Social
Doesn
Doe
Mean
Respond
Needs
Protection
Much
Trade

More quotes by Michelle Bachelet

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My top priority for 2012 will be to make a renewed push for women's economic empowerment and political participation.
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By including women in decision-making, city governments will be in a better position to fulfill their responsibility to ensure the safety of their residents, especially women and girls.
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Violence ravaged my life. I was a victim of hatred, and I have dedicated my life to reversing that hatred.
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The challenge is for us to reinvigorate the relationship with the Chilean people and to give state institutions new legitimacy. But this is also a universal phenomenon. There's also disenchantment with politics in Europe.
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For me, a better democracy is a democracy where women do not only have the right to vote and to elect but to be elected.
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Chile needs to unite behind the goals of reducing poverty and creating more equal opportunities so that everyone can benefit from what the country has to offer.
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Educational equality doesn't guarantee equality on the labor market. Even the most developed countries are not gender-equal. There are still glass ceilings and 'leaky pipelines' that prevent women from getting ahead in the workplace.
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One of the factors a country's economy depends on is human capital. If you don't provide women with adequate access to healthcare, education and employment, you lose at least half of your potential. So, gender equality and women's empowerment bring huge economic benefits.
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People see I am a mother and head of a household. Today in Chile, one-third of households are run by women. They wake up, take the children to school, go to work. To them I am hope.
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Violence against women in all its forms is a human rights violation. It's not something that any culture, religion or tradition propagates.
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There has been a cultural shift. It is difficult to measure all that right now, but Chilean women have seen my presidency as a source of pride. Women are performing in jobs in Chile now that 20 or 30 years ago nobody would have dared to imagine.
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I'm working for the women in the world, today that's my essential issue.
Michelle Bachelet
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When women earn the money for the family, everyone in the family benefits. We also know that when women have an income, everyone wins because women dedicate 90% of the income to health, education, to food security, to the children, to the family, or to the community, so when women have an income, everybody wins.
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As a doctor, when I was minister of health and would go somewhere, little girls would come up to me and say, 'I want to be like you one day, I want to be a doctor.' Now, they tell me, 'I want to be president just like you.' All of us can dream as big as we want.
Michelle Bachelet
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There is no city or country in the world where women and girls live free of the fear of violence. No leader can claim: this is not happening in my backyard.
Michelle Bachelet
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There's full consensus in the military that women shouldn't be in person-to-person combat. I don't know if we have enough experience to know whether this is the right approach. But women can be elsewhere. We have mandatory military service in Chile. I pushed for women in all areas.
Michelle Bachelet
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I am a woman with a calling for social struggle and public service.
Michelle Bachelet
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It was said that Chile was not ready to vote for a woman, it was traditionally a sexist country. In the end, the reverse happened: the fact of being a woman became a symbol of the process of cultural change the country was undergoing.
Michelle Bachelet
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Chile has done a lot to rid itself of poverty, especially extreme poverty, since the return to democracy. But we still have a ways to go toward greater equity. This country does not have a neoliberal economic model anymore. We have put in place a lot of policies that will ensure that economic growth goes hand in hand with social justice.
Michelle Bachelet
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The possibility of my presidential candidacy emerged spontaneously in public opinion polls. For my part, I noticed people's affection when I was doing work on the ground. I think the important thing is that my candidacy was born from citizens themselves, driven by the people and which the parties picked up favourably.
Michelle Bachelet