UN Report Urges Transformation Of ‘Unsustainable’ Care And Support Systems

GENEVA (6 March 2025) – Current care and support systems around the world are unsustainable and are built on and reinforce inequalities, according to a UN Human Rights Office report published today.

The report calls for a transformation of care and support systems, noting that the current situation often results in people’s rights, dignity, autonomy and agency being denied.

Around the world, care and support work is frequently unpaid or underpaid and mainly takes place within the informal sector. Women and girls, including those with disabilities and older women, perform the majority of the work.

The 2024 UN Gender Snapshot shows that, globally, women spend 2.5 more hours per day than men on unpaid care and domestic work. This situation leads to women having fewer paid work hours, which in turn results in lower income and savings, thereby limiting their livelihood prospects.

In addition, traditional care systems often normalise institutional care, failing to respect the autonomy of persons with disabilities, children, and both younger and older individuals who are frequently viewed as passive dependents. An estimated 102 out of every 100,000 children in alternative care worldwide are currently in residential care. UNICEF has found that in Europe and Central Asia children with disabilities are up to 30 times more likely to live in residential care facilities.

“The various combinations of inequalities based on gender, disability and age prevalent in current care and support systems underscore the urgent need for a radical overhaul and for us all to join forces to support this transformation,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk. “Such systems are a fundamental basis for achieving sustainable development and for the well-being and prosperity of all individuals, societies, economies and ecosystems.”

Care and support, according to the report, are acts of caring for oneself and of assisting others to carry out daily activities, maintain well-being and participate in society with dignity and autonomy.

The rights of those providing care and support and the rights of those requiring care and support are closely connected, be they women, men, girls or boys including those with disabilities.

The report highlights that existing international human rights standards relating to care and support have been developed in silos and calls for a more comprehensive approach to address the rights of those providing and those requiring care and support, and the rights of everyone to self-care.

It emphasises the crucial role of all stakeholders - namely States, business, civil society and different rights-holders themselves – to strengthen dialogue and collaborate in applying the full range of standards to transform care and support systems, to effectively address multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination.

In its recommendations, the report urges States to establish, finance and sustain comprehensive and rights-based care and support systems and calls on businesses to comply with relevant human rights standards, both as employers and service providers. ­It calls for care and support systems to be transformed so that they are gender-responsive, disability-inclusive and age-sensitive and in full respect of human rights.

“Investments should be significantly scaled up to realise the human rights of all rights-holders in care and support contexts,” the report says.

To read the full report, click on the following link: https://docs.un.org/en/A/HRC/58/43

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