Elena Caffarena

Elena Caffarena Morice was born on March 23, 1903, in Iquique into an Italian immigrant family. One of the earliest women to graduate from the University of Chile Law School in 1926, Caffarena dedicated her entire life to legal equality for working-class women and children.

In 1935, she co-founded the Movimiento Pro-Emancipación de las Mujeres de Chile (MEMCh), fighting for equal wages, reproductive rights, and universal suffrage. In 1949, President González Videla signed the historic Law 9292 drafted by Caffarena granting Chilean women the right to vote in presidential elections (though the government ironically denied her an invitation to the signing due to her communist husband!). During the Pinochet dictatorship, her home served as a sanctuary for persecuted dissidents until her death at age 100.