The bill was introduced in Congress by President Gustavo Petro, Vice-President France Márquez, the Minister of the Interior and the Senate and House of Representatives.

Bogota, October 18, 2022. @MinInterior. The Minister of the Interior, Alfonso Prada Gil, accompanied the President of the Republic, Gustavo Petro, and the Vice-President, France Márquez, to the radication of the Bill to establish the Ministry of Equality and Equity.

The head of the Ministry of the Interior stressed that with the adoption of this Bill, a campaign promise of the Government of Change has been fulfilled: “creating the ministry is to create the most powerful instrument of public administration to make a goal become a reality: to eliminate discrimination, exclusion, material inequality and lack of access to opportunities in all of Colombia and among its inhabitants.”

The Ministry of Equality and Equity seeks to ensure that children, young people, women, the LGBTIQ+ community, the Afro-Colombian population, raizals, indigenous and all the populations of the country are treated as equals, without exclusion, without gaps. The President of the Republic stated: “I am absolutely convinced that if we succeed in reducing the Gini index, the population will start to feel part of a society that recognizes them, that gives them more equity, that gives power to the excluded that they’ve never had before; the option of Peace will become a reality.” Meanwhile, the Vice President of the Republic stated that “Today is a very special day, for many a historic day, a day when the State opens its doors to make way for those who have historically been excluded and marginalized… Equality, as an essential value, is what will allow us to advance on that path towards Total Peace.”