Care and support are the basis for well-being of all people, societies, economies and ecosystems.

For too long, we’ve relied on women and girls, including those with disabilities and older women, to provide care and support. Excess workload for unpaid care work, domestic work, and support depletes time and resources for women and girls to access education, work, social life and rest. Women, including migrant women, also dominate paid care and support work that often lack decent working conditions. At the same time, persons with disabilities, children and older people are seen merely as passive receivers of care and their autonomy and choices are denied. When they require care and support, they tend to be confined at home or in care institutions and hospitals, isolated from the community.

Their rights have been neglected, as caregivers or care and support workers, and as those who require care and support. 

Rights-based care and support systems, that are gender-, disability-, and age-responsive, are a basis for the enjoyment of human rights and for sustainable development.

UN Human Rights supports countries to adopt and implement laws, policies and services on care and support systems that comply with human rights to create an inclusive economy.

We protect and promote the rights of everyone when they provide and require care and support. We work with women, persons with disabilities, children, younger and older persons, migrant workers and their families, and their representative organizations. We pay particular attention to those who face multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination.

UN Human Rights works with UN human rights mechanisms and other UN entities to address the human rights dimension of care and support.

Learn more about our work on care and support