Today, we find ourselves at a turning point.

We proudly welcome the historic advisory opinion of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which recognises care as an autonomous human right. This is not only a legal milestone, but also a political breakthrough and a victory for women and care workers across the Americas and around the world

Our Care Manifesto, launched in 2021, called precisely for this recognition: of care not as a commodity in the market economy, but as a human right.

This historic ruling confirms what we, as trade unionists, feminists and public service workers, have long fought for: care work — carried out overwhelmingly by women — is the backbone of our societies and must be decent work.

With this decision, the Court has placed care at the heart of human rights and, crucially, linked it to the principle of solidarity. In our view, it sends a strong message: Care is not a private responsibility, Care is not a commodity for profit-making. Care is a right that States must guarantee.

This strengthens our collective struggle to rebuild the social organisation of care so that:

• robust, universal, public-funded care systems with public provided services, are not the exception but the norm;

• care workers — the vast majority of whom are women — have access to decent work and are recognised, protected and fairly remunerated;

• gender equality is not merely an aspiration, but a lived reality.

This opinion is not only for the Americas; it sets a global standard that challenges all governments, everywhere, to follow suit: to recognise, legislate and invest in care as a human right, progressively and sustainably.

it sets a global standard that challenges all governments, everywhere, to follow suit

PSI and our affiliates will seize this momentum to demand deeper transformations. We will organise, mobilise and fight for concrete feminist public policies that make the right to care a lived reality — for everyone, in every community, for all workers.

Towards the XVI Regional Conference on Women of ECLAC

This triumph marks the starting point for a new stage of mobilisation. PSI and its affiliates will arrive at the XVI Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean — to be held from 12 to 15 August in Mexico — determined to consolidate a more ambitious and transformative Tlatelolco Commitment.

From now, a political offensive is being prepared to translate this legal decision into concrete realities: decent wages, fair working conditions, universal access to, and public provision of, care services, and a cultural shift that dismantles the sexual division of labour.

Today, we have not only won a legal argument. We have gained a political tool to advance towards social and gender justice. It is now the responsibility of States to respond with action.