Meghan Markle says daughter Lilibet Diana has “already found her voice.”
Noting the importance of empowering young girls to know their opinions matter, the Duchess of Sussex was speaking at a forum on the subject of Afro women and power in the Colombian city of Cali.
It was one of her final stops at the end of a whirlwind four-day tour through the country with her husband, Prince Harry. The pair traveled to Colombia at the invitation of Vice President Francia Márquez, a human rights activist and the nation’s first Black person to hold that office.
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After delivering a short speech in Spanish, Meghan switched back to English as she talked about how she and Harry “work incredibly well together as a team,” praising him for his work supporting her and other women.
“For us and the work that we do with our Archewell Foundation, certainly the work that we do as parents, as I do as a mother, is ensuring that young girls feel as though their voices are being heard,” Meghan said.
Remarking that it was equally important to ensure young boys are being raised to listen to those girls, Meghan went on to say that “part of the role modeling that I certainly try to do as a mother is to encourage our daughter, who at 3, she has found her voice, and we’re so proud of that.
“That is how we, as I was saying, create the conditions in which there’s a ripple effect of young girls and young women knowing that if someone else is encouraging them to use their voice and be heard, that’s what they’re going to do,” she continued, “and they’re going to create a very different environment than so many of us grew up in where our voices were meant to be smaller.”
Meghan Markle, left, and Colombia's Vice President Francia Marquez hug, in Bogota, Colombia August 15, 2024.
Eric Charbonneau/Archewell/Handout via ReutersTalking about her current “chapter of joy,” Meghan said that she had been “really relaxed on this trip,” joking that “it’s probably because it’s Colombia and you all know how to have fun.”
Responding to the applause and laughter that followed, she continued, “It’s true. There’s something so liberating about being able to be yourself and be comfortable in your skin and be surrounded in a space that is excited to see you exactly the way that you are. And so that’s part of the chapter, for me, of joy that will hopefully continue to inspire and allow me to keep doing the work that we love to do.”
The forum was heavily guarded as part of an expanded security operation that extended to the city streets, with roadblocks and hundreds of soldiers and police officers stationed outdoors, according to The Times of London.
Harry and Meghan’s packed itinerary has also included stops in the capital, Bogotá, and the city of Cartagena, where they toured a local drum school and visited a village established by freed slaves three centuries ago.
Speaking to the villagers of San Basilio de Palenque on Saturday, Meghan explained, “This trip was like a dream come true, because here I can feel the community and this feeling is the best in the world,” according to The Times.
Later on Sunday, the couple were expected to attend Cali’s Petronio Alvarez Festival, which bills itself as the world’s largest celebration of Afro-Colombian music and culture.
