Advances in care policies in Latin America and the Caribbean: towards a care society with gender equality

The commitments made over the last 45 years have led to the development of a robust Regional Gender Agenda in which women’s rights and gender equality are recognized as central and cross-cutting elements of all State action geared toward strengthening democracy and enabling a new style of sustainable development with equality. The right to care, understood as the right to receive care, to provide care and to exercise self-care, is part of the human rights already recognized in international covenants and treaties that benefit all people. The right to care also implies the recognition of the value of work, the guarantee of the rights of caregivers and the overcoming of stereotypes in which care is deemed to be the exclusive responsibility of women. Beyond the diversity of economic and cultural situations and institutional frameworks, all the countries of the region must design comprehensive care systems that aim for universal access to and quality of services, coordination and intersectoral policies, financial sustainability and social and gender co-responsibility.