The upcoming UNCSW69/Beijing+30 (2025) will review progress on the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and assess challenges to gender equality. the Core group behind the Rebuilding the Social Organisation of Care Manifesto (RSOC), is seizing the oppportunity to strengthen advocacy around the 5Rs of the Manifesto focusing on recognition of care as a human right.

To this effect, the RSOC core group is inviting feminists and social movements worldwide to participate in an online UNCSW69 parallel event on The Human Right to Care in the Beijing +30 Global Commitments:

• Date: Wednesday, 12 March

• Time: 8:30-10:30 am (EST - New York)

• Interpretation:  English and Spanish  

• Registration: https://world-psi.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMrc-CqrTwrG9Gihp_oLYfGxfsubofzx_96

Background

The UNCSW69/Beijing+30 (2025) main focus will be on the review and appraisal of the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the outcomes of the 23rd special session of the General Assembly. The review will include an assessment of current challenges that affect the implementation of the Platform for Action and the achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of women and its contribution towards the full realisation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. 

In 2021 a group of feminist, human rights, and trade union organisations released the Rebuilding the Social Organisation of Care Manifesto and called to join a global movement to confront the care crises. The Beijing +30 momentum enables strengthening advocacy efforts on the 5Rs of the Care Manifesto, particularly in encouraging the recognition of care as a human right. This groundbreaking political milestone could transform women's lives and reinforce the BDPA’s renewed commitments. 

Concept

The BDPA put in place strong ambition and commitments to foster equitable rights and opportunities for women and girls, including addressing the structural barriers they face. Historically, women and girls’ unpaid and paid care roles have however been subjugated and devalued within our societies, including the economies. The backdrop lies on the structural inequalities and cultural paradigms that assume women and girls must naturally engage in care work, in addition to the ongoing trend to diminish the importance of this vital work. Both dimensions continue to dismantle women's and girls’ opportunities and rights. 

Notably, the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted how the lack of structural guarantees for women and girls led to a regression in their progress, as women and girls performed even more unpaid care work; thus, evidencing the vacuum left by a complete lack of a social safety net. Crises, from the pandemic, climate, or conflict, disproportionately impact women and girls because of the structural inequalities they face, including inequity in care.  In parallel, the pandemic exposed the absence of the State, particularly in the Global South, where public services were lacking, while in the Global North, most public services had already been privatised. 

This parallel event will take stock of the progress made since the Beijing Declaration 30 years ago and chart a way forward on how to accelerate progress in the space of rebuilding the social organisation of care. 

The event will identify urgent actions to accelerate in response to the dominant political economy and the existential climate and ecological crisis. A key focus is the urgent recognition of care as a human right, essential for rebuilding the social organisation of care and addressing injustices in the extractive global care chain. This includes recognising, reducing, redistributing, and rewarding care work, while also reclaiming public care services and reinforcing the State’s role in financing, providing, and regulating care systems. 

Methodology

The event will be organised into two sessions designed to build a new momentum. 

Session 1:
This session will focus on placing the rebuilding of the social organization of care at the heart of the Beijing +30 review and promoting the recognition of care as a human right. It will assess current efforts by the international human rights system, such as the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and set the stage for further actions, both within and beyond the Beijing +30 commitments, including numerous multilateral processes such as the Summit of the Future, and the World Summit on Social Development. 

Session 2:
This session will connect the importance of the recognition of care as a human right for intersecting and integrated agendas, such as how to build caring economies (societies), decent work for care workers, care-led transition, global economy and debt, the UN Tax Convention and the unearned wealth of colonialism. 

Programme 

Bibliography for further reading

• RSOC-Core Group - Recognising Care as a Human Right and a Public Good in the Pact for the Future - PSI - The global union federation of workers in public services

• GI-ESCR - The Society of Carelessness - LA Progressive

• GI-ESCR - A Care-led Transition to a Sustainable Future

• CARE International and Cherie Blair Foundation for Women - Building caring economies as a pathway to economic and gender justice

• OXFAM - Takers, not makers

• FES - The Right to Care. From Recognition to its Effective Exercise