Three years ago, we began to explore the idea of a global social pact on care. Today, we confirm that this is an urgent agenda and an important area for learning, analysis, and political struggle. The current financial, economic, health, ecological, and care crises are making our lives more precarious, insecure, and commodified. Women bear the brunt of this burden as they do at least 2.5 times more unpaid domestic and care work than men. The situation is particularly challenging for domestic workers who still struggle for recognition of their status as essential service providers even twelve years after the adoption of the ILO Domestic Workers Convention. In Latin America, women make up 93% of the 11 to 18 million people engaged in domestic work, according to the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). At the recent XV Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, representatives of domestic workers organized in SOCRA, UTRASD, and NUDE in Argentina, Colombia, and Trinidad and Tobago respectively, highlighted the negative impact that public sector cutbacks are having on their homes and communities. They are facing losing access to food, water, education, health, and social security, having fewer opportunities to access decent work, and being forced to assume the growing burden of unpaid care work and increased debt. Caring For the Planet Is a Feminist Issue Caring for the planet is a crucial part of the feminist agenda, as capitalism and patriarchy are structural drivers of climate change. The prevailing economic model of exploitation, extractivism, and resource control exacerbates structural gender inequalities, and as a result, 80% of people displaced by climate-related events are women and girls. Kavita Naidu, a human rights lawyer and member of the Network, observed during a panel that in the aftermath of natural disasters, “women and girls, in all their diversity, often end up trying to find employment in urban settings where they can only work as domestic workers. They are often undocumented and highly vulnerable to abuse and even sex trafficking. Women, who no longer inherit or own land, are further denied access to land and resources in the wake of natural disasters.” Women are leading the way in climate change solutions, environmental sustainability, and biodiversity protection, whether as part of a global movement for climate justice or as defenders of their territories in the face of extractive industries and corporate capture. Indigenous women leaders, feminists, and activists from around the world have called for COP27 to include care in the debate on loss and damage, emphasizing that the highly industrialized countries of the Global North, which cause the problem, should make payments to the countries of the Global South that experience the impacts directly. Gender must be integrated into all discussions on loss and damage and climate change, according to Hala Murad, a member of the Network and representative of the Dibeen Association for Environmental Association in Jordan. |
