Original article: ¿Es obligatoria la perspectiva de género en establecimientos educativos? Lo que no sabes de la ley 21.675
By Vivian Franco and Rodrigo Gutiérrez, Fundación Convivo
September has ended, marking the conclusion of Suicide Prevention Month.
While civil society appreciates the campaigns and reminders, it’s clear that suicide prevention cannot rely solely on calendars or hashtags. Effective prevention requires functioning institutions, the eradication of all forms of violence from an early age, and ultimately, building a world where all children want to live.
This raises an uncomfortable question: How does suicide prevention relate to gender perspective? Is non-sexist education mandatory in schools, colleges, and high schools?
The legal answer is yes. This is not a trend or ideological preference—it is a legal mandate.
Today, we understand that suicide is multifactorial, and no single story can explain it. However, there are risk factors we can prevent: normalized violence, unacknowledged narratives, and institutions that turn a blind eye. These factors are precisely what non-sexist education and serious protocols against gender violence aim to disrupt.
While some minority sectors have chosen to deny or downplay the importance and contributions of this law, many of us are committed to continuing robust and concrete prevention efforts.
On October 13, we marked seven years since the death of Antonia Barra, a 21-year-old who had confided to those around her that she was a victim of sexual violence but did not receive the support she needed.
On November 12, we will observe seven years since the death of Karin Salgado, a nursing technician at Chillán’s Herminda Martín Hospital, who suffered from severe and prolonged workplace harassment.
These two women’s stories, though different in many aspects, highlight a common issue: what happens when the spaces that are supposed to provide care fail to do so in time.
Chile already possesses legal tools worth reviewing:
- Antonia Law (No. 21.523, 2022): Criminalized femicidal suicide and incitement to suicide, while reinforcing guarantees to prevent the revictimization of victims of sexual crimes.
- Karin Law (No. 21.643, effective from August 2024): Mandates the prevention, investigation, and sanction of harassment and violence at work, incorporating a gender perspective in its approach.
- Law No. 21.675 (2024): The comprehensive law against violence towards women, which directly addresses schools.
However, the issue extends beyond individual cases.
In 2022, the national increase of suicide among adolescents aged 15 to 19 rose by 31% compared to the previous year, primarily due to a staggering 250% rise in fatalities among females aged 15 to 19 in the Metropolitan Region.
This phenomenon was documented in the Study on Adolescent Suicide in Chile, ESACH 2023, conducted by our foundation and, despite being referenced in various national and international studies, was neither addressed nor discussed by our health system, the educational sector, or gender-related institutions.
This does not imply that gender violence explains these deaths entirely. Suicide is multifactorial. Yet, it prompts us to ask why certain phenomena disproportionately affect men and women and what societal, cultural, and institutional factors might be at play.
This is precisely the purpose of a gender perspective: to examine differences that might otherwise go unnoticed.
In education, it is not optional. The obligation already exists.
Law 21.675, published on June 14, 2024, does not differentiate between schools that want to and those that do not—it applies to all institutions recognized by the state.
The Education Superintendence monitors compliance with educational regulations and can initiate punitive measures as appropriate. Furthermore, the adaptation timelines of Law 21.809 do not suspend the obligations already arising from Law 21.675.
In summary, when institutions fail to provide timely protection, the costs will manifest eventually—often at a much higher price and frequently with irreversible human costs.
Thus, any educational community that has not yet adjusted its Internal Regulations, protocols, and Civic Education Plan is unnecessarily exposing itself—not only to potential consequences for its sponsoring entity but, more seriously, to perpetuating institutional practices that may obscure or reproduce gender inequalities and violence that are not always visible, yet their effects can be stark.
According to the Education Superintendence, between 2014 and 2024, 74% of students reporting adult bullying were female; 61% of those reporting sexual harassment were female; and 74% of those reporting cyberbullying were female (SIE, 2024).
So, how can we address these situations from their roots without applying a gender perspective?
What Law 21.675 Requires from a School
Article 12 mandates state-recognized institutions to promote non-sexist education and gender equality, incorporate prevention of gender violence into their internal regulations and protocols, and ensure that their Civic Education Plans uphold women’s right to a life free from violence.
Article 20 goes further: it requires objective procedures for reporting, investigating, and sanctioning in the Internal Regulations; effective victim protection; measures to reduce or eliminate secondary victimization; information on support institutions; referral protocols; and the obligation for families, teachers, assistants, and management teams to report.
This establishes a concrete link: a school that identifies, protects, and supports victims in a timely manner can disrupt cycles of abandonment and violence.
The law itself acknowledges institutional violence and orders the prevention of secondary victimization. It is not an embellishment: it is prevention—not just for students, but also for female educators, who constitute around 75% of the total workforce in the Chilean school system.
Moreover, promoting non-sexist education and integrating a gender perspective into education aids in preventing and eradicating various forms of school violence by allowing for critical identification of power dynamics, gender stereotypes, and cultural biases that may originate, normalize, or justify many of the aggressions encountered within an educational community.
This perspective is not merely a reactive tool, but a structural condition for prevention that enables a critical view of school culture to build genuinely safe, just, and discrimination-free environments.
The Law Exists. What About the Standard?
The current general instructions from the Education Superintendence predate Law 21.675.
In April 2026, the circulars approved by Exempt Resolutions No. 781 and 782 were repealed, one of which, according to the Superintendence itself, incorporated the gender perspective.
Additionally, Law 21.809 on school coexistence, effective from July 1, introduces an adaptation period for schools.
The result: the obligation exists, but clarity on how to fulfill it does not. Lack of guidance does not suspend the law.
Civil Society Demands Clarity and Protection
As Fundación Convivo, we demand certainty regarding a legal obligation that already exists. When the state mandates something but does not specify how to comply, it is the student who suffers, not the desk where decisions are made.
That is why, on September 29, we formally submitted a request to the Education Superintendence for a ruling on the standard that institutions must meet to comply with Articles 12 and 20 of Law 21.675.
We posed eleven specific questions: what should an Internal Regulation contain and what dimensions need adjustment, how are reports structured, protocols, investigations, and sanctions, what measures protect victims and prevent their revictimization, and how does it all relate to Law 21.809?
This was not intended to hinder anyone or to overload our already burdened schools with more bureaucracy, nor to take away energy “for teaching, supporting, and forming individuals.”
Instead, we aimed to ensure that every sponsor can easily grasp the importance of the necessary adjustments and how to implement them, fostering caring environments where no student, worker, or young child must pay the cost of regulatory ambiguity or the perpetuation of institutional practices that reproduce forms of violence affecting all educational communities.
As civil society, we do not expect answers to come on their own; we are asking for them in writing and will continue to insist until we receive them.
The law is already written; now it is the state’s turn to specify how it should be implemented, and for educational communities to embrace these tools, aware of the support they can provide for coexistence, well-being, and mental health.
We hope that, with the Education Superintendence’s response, we will gain clear guidance on compliance with the law and, from the specific realities of educational communities, be able to address basic questions about a reality that has been long-standing: Why are women significantly more exposed to sexual violence in schools, colleges, and high schools than men?
What is the relationship between this and the fact that, according to the 2025 Statistical Compendium of Gendarmería de Chile, approximately 99% of those incarcerated for sexual crimes are men?
How do the gender stereotypes and values associated with masculinity that we promote from early childhood influence the relationship dynamics underlying this trend?
How do these same gender stereotypes and their derived prejudices negatively affect both those who attempt to conform to them and those who deviate from them? These and many more questions need to be answered to build educational environments that truly nurture the full development of all individuals within our schools, colleges, and high schools.
(*) Vivian Franco is a lawyer specializing in gender and educational rights, legal director of Fundación Educacional Convivo, and partner at Estudio Jurídico Perspectivasur.cl.
Rodrigo Gutiérrez Lobos is the executive director of Fundación Convivo.cl and a sociologist specializing in educational coexistence.
