WOMEN’S organisations celebrated “a historic day” after hearing that the right to free abortion is to be debated by Chile’s Constitutional Convention.

The programme, which was drafted by a number of feminist organisations, has reached the required 15,000 signatures to be accepted by the convention, it was announced yesterday.

“We are happy; the power of the feminist movement makes the news again,” said convention member Elisa Guistinianovich.

Celebrating the victory for Chile’s women’s movement, which has campaigned for the right to a free and safe abortion for decades, Alondra Carrillo declared: “Today is a historic day.”

The 155-member convention was elected last year to draft a new constitution that will mark a decisive break with the existing charter, which dates from the 1973-90 dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet.

Along with the recent presidential election victory of Gabriel Boric, the abortion victory is seen as the culmination of street protests that swept the country in 2019 and 2020.

A national plebiscite will be held in 2022 to determine whether the public agrees with the text.

Chile used to have one of the most restrictive abortion policies in the world.

Terminations were criminalised until 2017, when a change allowed for abortions in exceptional circumstances — a threat to the life of the mother or the foetus and in cases of rape.