New Women’s Commission Sworn In with Renewed Mandate

A new chapter began this morning for the National Women’s Commission, as its newly appointed members were officially sworn in during a brief ceremony. Among those present was the former Chairlady and now Minister of Human Development, Family and Gender Affairs, Thea Garcia-Ramirez, who welcomed the fresh slate of commissioners. The 13-member board is now led by President Kristina Romero and is expected to operate under a renewed mandate. Minister Garcia-Ramirez noted that the commission’s work will be guided by a modernized framework, shaped by legislative reforms passed in the National Assembly last year.

Thea Garcia, Minister of Human Development: “I was the previous. president so it’s bittersweet I am now on the other side but that just means that we’ll be working better together as I know the work of the Commission. The difference is at this time we have a clear mandate and legal framework. As you know, the National  Homeless Commission Act was passed in 2024 and so that sets up exactly what the framework is. The work of the Commission is well defined now and now we’re ready to work together closely with the Ministry and of course with the Office of the Special Envoy we also took this opportunity as well  to sign a memorandum of understanding  with the Office of the Special Envoy on how we’re going to partner,  work together and collaborate so that the three entities are now going to be able to have a clear mandate how we’re going to proceed  moving forward together, moving what we call the social agenda, the gender policy and all of these great documents that we have that we need to start to really press on and get a move on. I think the commission becoming a full statutory body and having its own act for me was one of the big highlights. Also our work in ensuring that the gender policy was approved by Cabinet and is now the overreaching policy in terms of gender was also very monumental for us at the National Women’s Commission in my time. We did a lot of work for example with the consultation on the marriage act ensuring that children are no longer able to marry even with the consent of parents, that was another huge win for us. But not only for the National Women’s Commission, for the Office of the Special Envoy, NCFC also collaborated on that and of course the ministry at the time so we work a lot together but certainly those were the highlights that we could count on.”

The newly appointed Commissioners are Kristina Romero, Dr.Lorna McKay, Tina Castillo Johnson, Mirna Waight, Therese Tillett, Dorla Vaughan, Olivia Sho, Shajarie Rogers, Lysandra Berbey, Esperanza Arreaza, Katie Jones, Josie Cantun, and Eleanor Murillo.