Josefina Valencia Muñoz

Who was Josefina Valencia Muñoz?

Josefina Valencia Muñóz was a Colombian politician, and the first woman to be appointed governor of a Colombian department as Governor of Cauca, and the first woman to be appointed to a cabinet-level position as the 46th Minister of National Education of Colombia.

A leader of the women's suffrage movement in Colombia, she became the first woman to be appointed to serve in a national legislative position in Colombia as part of the National Constituent Assembly in 1954 where she helped introduce what would eventually be the Legislative Act No. 3, which modified Article 171 of the Colombian Constitution of 1886 that granted universal suffrage to women.