Carina Vance Mafla

Who is Carina Vance Mafla?

Carina Isabel Vance Mafla is Ecuador's Minister for Public Health. Vance was born in Oakland, California. She went to high school in Ecuador and attended university in the United States. After attending Williams College for her undergraduate degree and earning a master's degree in public health from the University of California, Berkeley, she returned to Ecuador in 2004.

Vance is openly lesbian. She spent time in Europe as a girl, where, at the age of thirteen, she and her first girlfriend were attacked by homophobic youths. Vance had already begun to understand and accept her identity as a lesbian, but said that this incident "was not only a discovery of my homosexuality, but also society's reaction to it." She subsequently worked as a lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights activist and was the executive director of Fundacion Causana, a lesbian rights organization.

Vance was appointed to the Cabinet by President Rafael Correa in January 2012, after her predecessor David Chiriboga resigned amid concerns that he was unable to fix the problems in Ecuador's national healthcare system.