Date and time: Monday, 11 August, from 11:30 to 13:00
Venue: Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, Plaza Juárez 20, 1st Floor, Centro District, Cuauhtémoc Borough, Mexico City
Room: Benito Juárez Hall, 1st Floor
Speakers
| Welcome and introductory remarks | Valentina Contreras, GI-ESCR (Moderator) |
| Human rights framework for care and support services as the foundation of care societies | Asako Hattori, OHCHR |
| Advances and challenges in Chile’s national care system | Francisca Gallegos Jara, Undersecretary of Social Services of Chile |
| The National System of Care in Colombia | María Nohemí González Martínez, Dirección de Cuidado, Ministerio de Igualdad y Equidad, Gobierno de Colombia |
| Care policy developments in Brazil national care system | Carolina Miranda, Secretaría Nacional de Cuidados y Familia de Brasil |
| Building fair care systems rooted in a just social organisation of care in the region: The role of care workers and its unions | Nayeli Fernández, Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Seguridad Social de México |
| Challenges and opportunities towards gender-, disability- and age-responsive care and support systems | Carlos Rios-Espinosa, Human Rights Watch |
| Conclusions: How to transition to a society of care? | Ana Moreno, Global Alliance for Care (GAC) |
| Comments from the audience | Valentina Contreras, GI-ESCR (Moderator) |
| Acknowledgments and closing | Valentina Contreras, GI-ESCR (Moderator) |
Background
Nearly thirty years after the Copenhagen Declaration and Programme of Action, the world is facing intensifying inequalities, mounting social fragmentation that deepens the society of carelessness, and a weakening of public institutions and the value placed on the commons. In this challenging context, Latin America and the Caribbean is mobilizing to advance transformative agendas, such as that of the XVI Regional Conference on Women, which puts the construction of care societies and gender equality at its core.
At the heart of this transformation lies the development and strengthening of universal, quality public care and support services—those that guarantee the rights of all people, both as those providing and requiring care and support, redistribute care and support responsibilities, and strengthen social cohesion. Public care and support services are instrumental in ensuring women’s rights, gender justice, and leaving no one behind. They are also foundational for a new social pact centered on dignity, equality, participation, and sustainability. As such, recently created governmental secretariats in charge of care among the region have been responsible for some of the main concrete advances in terms of guaranteeing human rights and women’s rights throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.
Despite the undeniable commonalities of countries among Latin America, the unsurmountable differences shaped by history, geographies, communities and policies, make the realities of care take different forms in each country. The operational logics of the day-to-day of public administration do not leave time or means to record the history of public policy: the reasons behind every momentous decision, the lessons learned in the way, the limitations faced in every scenario and the opportunities opened by them.
Likewise, acknowledging the efforts made by many States in Latin America and Caribbean on legal, policy and program initiatives on care and support systems, many of them tend to focus on the rights of specific groups and thus fragmented or not aligned with the full range of applicable human rights standards. Accordingly, there is a concerning trend of privatizing care and support services without human rights safeguards and with a continued over-reliance on families to provide care and support, rather than redistributing care and support responsibilities between States, business, communities and families through States' role in providing public services and regulating private service providers. Some examples of this phenomena are that the efforts to increase services may be made without guaranteeing decent work for all care workers, or service improvement at care institutions is made without engaging in deinstitutionalization processes or without fostering redistribution of care responsibilities from families to public services.
Echoing this crucial need to document efforts made and lessons learnt, this event will provide a space for state representatives and civil society organizations from the region to share their lived experiences in the construction of public care and support services that serve as the backbone of care societies, and in the recognition of care as a human right. It will offer a space for an honest dialogue on how the models were decided, what gaps remain after those decisions, the persistent difficulties in implementing care and support policies, the strategies adopted to make the theories come to life; as well as the value of regional cooperation among governments, the strength of social dialogue, and inclusive participation, amidst an increasing political instability around the world.
All of this will provide essential inputs to shape not only local processes, but also related global processes, such as the Second World Summit on Social Development, as well as other global and regional fora shaping the care, support and social justice agenda.
Objectives
1. Showcase regional experiences, lessons learned and current challenges in the development of public care and support services as devices to guarantee gender equality and human rights.
2. Reflect on the ways in which austerity measures impact the provision of public care and support services and how to strategize for the reinforcement of care as a public good
3. Analyse the interconnections of care and support services with health, education and social protection.
