Argentina’s Justice Ministry announced the dismantling of 13 social programs on Friday, including MenstruAR, an initiative that delivered free menstrual hygiene products. The ministry also eliminated programs assisting trans people as well as victims of gender-based violence and their families.

“The elimination of these programs represents a savings of more than AR$6 billion per year for all good Argentines,” the ministry wrote in a post on X, calling the cancelled initiatives “ideological.”

This is not the first time President Javier Milei’s administration has targeted programs intended to assist minorities and the underprivileged. Since taking office, it has closed the INADI institute against discrimination and the Women, Gender and Diversity Ministry, as well as an under-secretariat against gender-based violence that had been created to replace the ministry. All programs related to these issues were also eliminated.

The programs

The Women, Gender, and Diversity Ministry launched the MenstruAR Program in 2023, under Alberto Fernández’s administration. Its goal was to deliver menstrual cups to municipalities throughout the country “to ensure equal access of menstruating people to menstrual hygiene products.” The program also promoted the use of sustainable products such as reusable wipes and menstrual cups, among others.

Ayelén Mazzina, who was the last head of that ministry, said the government was not just carrying out austerity measures with this decision.

“It is a political, cruel, and deeply ideological decision. Eliminating 13 programs that protected women, diverse gender identities, and families victims of femicide is not a budget cut, it is an act of abandonment,” Mazzina wrote in a column published in Perfil newspaper.

At least two of the eliminated programs assisted victims of gender-based violence and their families. One consisted of economic reparations for the families of people killed in gender-based attacks, as well as psychological assistance and legal advice. Another financed refugees “aimed at the protection and assistance of individuals and their families in situations of gender-based violence.”

“When a woman is murdered, something is forever broken in her family,” wrote Mazzina. “The state cannot give that life back, but it can — and must — be present to embrace that mother, those children, so that they do not face the pain alone,” she added.

The administration also cancelled  a program consisting of economic assistance to trans people “in situations of extreme vulnerability.”

A deteriorating situation

In its annual report published last week, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) warned that the Argentine government was implementing policies that hurt the rights of women and LGBTQ+ people. The brief added that Milei’s austerity measures also eroded the overall population’s enjoyment of economic, social, cultural, and environmental rights.

In 2024, the first year of Milei’s presidency, government cuts and restructuring hindered efforts to fight gender-based violence and discrimination, the IACHR said. “For the first time in 40 years, there is no governing body in the country responsible for the design and implementation of policies to prevent and eradicate gender-based violence,” the report said.