About Esmeralda Arboleda Cadavid
María Esmeralda Arboleda Cadavid (January 7, 1921 – 16 April 1997) was a Colombian politician, suffragist and the first woman elected to the Senate of Colombia, serving from 1958 to 1961. A leader of the women's suffrage movement in Colombia, she and fellow suffragist Josefina Valencia Muñoz were the first women appointed to a national legislative position in Colombia as part of the National Constituent Assembly in 1954, where they presented what would eventually be the Legislative Act No. 3, which modified Article 171 of the Colombian Constitution of 1886 granting universal suffrage to women. She also served as the 10th Minister of Communications of Colombia, as Ambassador of Colombia to Austria, and as Deputy Permanent Representative of Colombia to the United Nations. == Career == She entered private practice in Cali, where she focused on labour law concerning the disparity in wages by the Pacific Railway to its employees. She later moved to Bogotá, where she entered the women's suffrage movement. She was involved in the National Feminist Organization of Colombia, which operated under the leadership of María Currea Manrique and former First Lady of Colombia Bertha Hernández Fernández. When General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla came to power in a military coup d'état, the women's suffrage movement had an ideological split between those who opposed military rule and those who supported the regime. Arboleda became an ardent opponent of military rule, and publicly voiced her concern for and criticism of the President. Pressured by both sides, President Rojas, who had maintained the National Constituent Assembly begun by his predecessor, the deposed Roberto Urdaneta Arbeláez, named two women to the assembly.
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