Care as a human right: a bi-regional agenda for the sustainability of life

Currently, after decades of sustained efforts by the global feminist movement, policymakers, governments, and United Nations agencies are beginning to incorporate into their agendas the recognition that care is necessary work to sustain daily life and the economy, and that this work should be dignified, recognized as a human right, and not fall primarily on the most vulnerable women. Although there is still much to be done for governments to allocate solid budgets and promote a concrete care agenda, global advances are crucial windows of opportunity to position the issue of care as central to closing gender inequality gaps and realizing dignified and sustainable development models. In this context, the Latin America and Caribbean and European Union Summit (CELAC-EU), whose next and fourth meeting will be held in Colombia in November 2025, is a historic opportunity for the countries of the European Union and Latin America and the Caribbean to come together around the care agenda and formulate concrete strategies to advance its implementation. 

In October 2023, the EU-LAC Foundation, together with the governments of Spain and Colombia, ECLAC, UN Women, GIZ, and the Global Care Alliance drafted the “Bi-regional Care Pact between Latin America and the Caribbean and the European Union,” which seeks to “promote cooperation between the European Union (EU), Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) for the development of policies that recognize care as a fundamental and universal right.” Its content will be discussed at the CELAC-EU Summit in Colombia. The unequal distribution of care work and the vulnerability of impoverished, racialized, and migrant women who bear the heaviest care burdens in the world are global phenomena that require coordinated solutions between regions and countries. For this reason, the upcoming Summit is an urgent and crucial space for coordination to advance the care agenda on both continents and for coordinated and comprehensive solutions to a global phenomenon. 

In recent decades, Latin America and the Caribbean have made vital progress in recognizing and materializing care as a right in its three dimensions: the right to care in dignified conditions, the right to receive care, and the right to self-care. For example, there are various instruments such as the OAS Charter, the Protocol of San Salvador, and ILO Convention 183, which recognize and protect the rights of paid caregivers (such as domestic workers) and affirm that those who perform these tasks enjoy the same rights as workers in general. Similarly, international and regional standards such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and the Inter-American Convention on Protection of Older Persons guarantee a regulatory framework to protect the rights of people who, due to their stage of life or special condition of vulnerability, require greater care than the rest of the population. More recently, Advisory Opinion 031 of 2025 of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights advances in the definition and recognition of care as an autonomous right in its three dimensions, which requires development and regulation in domestic legislation and must be defined in relation to the rights to work, social security, health, and education. These regional advances, together with the concrete actions that different countries in the region have taken to implement national care systems and incorporate the right to care into their regulations, constitutions, and jurisprudence, represent key milestones of good practices to be taken into account in the discussion of the Bi-regional Pact at the next CELAC-EU Summit. 

In particular, discussions of the Bi-regional Pact cannot ignore the phenomenon of international migration and its impact on the social and economic dynamics of both regions. Migrant women provide care in conditions of greater vulnerability before migrating, during the migration process, and once they arrive at their destinations. Their care work—both paid and unpaid—permeates their life experiences and has a decisive impact on their life plans and their possibilities for socioeconomic integration.    

The relationship between migration, gender, and care has been analyzed based on the concept of “global care chains,” which has been useful in understanding how global migration and networks that transcend national borders are essential for the provision of care at the global level. Thus, the global care crisis has found a partial solution in the work carried out by migrant women both in institutionalized spaces and within households in their destination countries. Likewise, the migration of women implies a reorganization of care in their own homes, which is usually assumed by other women in the family. Similarly, migrant women continue to provide care in their countries of origin through channels and mechanisms such as remittances and long-distance emotional support. Hence, a comprehensive view of the impacts of migration on care management in both the destination and origin countries of migrant women is necessary. This vision would allow legislative and public policy developments in the field of care and migration to take into account the particular needs of migrant women and guarantee the conditions for them to be able to care for others in dignified conditions and receive the care they need to enjoy a dignified life. 

The care crisis and migration flows will continue to reshape societies, making it urgent to design policies and programs that adapt to the new realities of care. The approval and implementation of the Bi-regional Pact could be an invaluable opportunity for the States of both regions to advance in the implementation of the recommendations that various international organizations—such as the ILO, ECLAC, the Inter-American Commission of Women with the Inter-American Model Law on Care, and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights with OC-31 of 2025—have developed in relation to guaranteeing the right to care in all its dimensions. Some of these recommendations include:

• Recognizing care as an autonomous human right, in accordance with Advisory Opinion 31/2025 of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and ensuring its incorporation into the national legislation of the EU and LAC.
•   Facilitating access to social security, health and pension schemes for people who have performed unpaid care work.
•   Ensuring disability, old-age, and survivor benefits for people engaged in unpaid care work.
•   Promoting the incorporation or reintegration of unpaid caregivers into the formal workforce, in jobs unrelated to unpaid care work, when they so desire.
•     Ensuring that paid care workers have the same rights as any other worker.
•   Implementing measures to reconcile work and care needs, and remove barriers that prevent caregiving from allowing them to access or remain in employment.
• Guaranteeing maternity leave, paternity leave, care leave, and family benefits that allow people with care responsibilities to exercise their rights to care, be cared for, and self-care.
•   Designing care policies and migration policies in a coordinated manner to ensure that migrants and their families have access to care benefits and services, as well as to other social protection services in their countries of origin, transit, and destination.

The implementation of these recommendations requires significant efforts and resources on the part of States. Hence, axes 3: promoting cooperation programs and 4: stimulating the formulation of concrete proposals, proposed by the Bi-regional Pact, are particularly relevant for moving in this direction. The approval of this pact during the next CELAC-EU summit will be a key step in promoting a new organization of care that guarantees care as a right in both regions and that is committed to dignified economic and development models that place the sustainability of life at the center.