The respect for human rights is nowadays not so much a matter of having international standards, but rather questions of compliance with those standards.

Women say that my election represents a cultural break with the past - a past of sexism, of misogyny.

By including women in decision-making, city governments will be in a better position to fulfill their responsibility to ensure the safety of their residents, especially women and girls.

One of the factors a country's economy depends on is human capital. If you don't provide women with adequate access to healthcare, education and employment, you lose at least half of your potential. So, gender equality and women's empowerment bring huge economic benefits.

Chile has changed. The people have become more mature and they are more conscious of their rights. They want to participate and have a say about things such as if and where a power plant can be built.

As a doctor, when I was minister of health and would go somewhere, little girls would come up to me and say, 'I want to be like you one day, I want to be a doctor.' Now, they tell me, 'I want to be president just like you.' All of us can dream as big as we want.

During my lifetime, I realized that discrimination was not accidental, that there were structural roots and causes to it. So if we wanted to change women's lives, we need to deal with those root causes.