A/HRC/44/51 Covering non-standard workers under sexual harassment laws Recently, some companies that engage people in work through a digital platform have commenced granting full employee status to their workers, ensuring workers receive higher wages, pension contributions, sickness benefits and protection under labour laws, including protection from sexual harassment. Meanwhile other gig companies have ended the practice of forced arbitration agreements in situations where workers make sexual harassment claims against the company. Covering gig economy workers under domestic violence policies Unions in some countries are pushing for legislative amendments to broaden the definition of employee so as to capture gig economy workers and ensure that they have full access to workplace protections, including the provision of paid domestic and family violence leave provided under employment guarantees. Recognizing, reducing and redistributing unpaid care and domestic work 46. Recognizing the social and economic value of unpaid care and domestic work and reducing the time burden and redistributing it more equally between women and men and between households and society through public investments in infrastructure and services are critical for the achievement of substantive equality. Ensuring all workers have access to a comprehensive system of paid maternity, paternity and parental leave, in line with international standards, is also essential, as is providing accessible, affordable and quality care services. 47. In the context of the changing world of work, there is a need for policy reform to ensure that women engaged in non-standard forms of work, including informal work, have access to maternity and parental leave provisions, in line with international standards. The provision of care services with flexible start and finish times, intermittent care provision and drop-in care services is an important enabler of women’s work. This is particularly pertinent as the world faces climate change and increasing health pandemics, for example the current COVID-19 crisis, which will significantly increase women’s unpaid care workloads. Flexible working time arrangements also play an important role in supporting workers (both men and women) to balance paid work and caring responsibilities and can be facilitated through technological advances. While new forms of work offered by digital platforms often provide greater flexibility, it is important that flexibility goes hand in hand with job security and decent pay and conditions. The rapidly ageing populations in many parts of the world not only requires Governments to invest in affordable and quality aged care services, but also to provide for paid carers leave and flexibility provisions that recognize the diverse caring responsibilities that women have over their lifetime, and to put in place measures to ensure men take up more unpaid care work. Box 3 Promising practices Extending maternity leave to informal workers An Asia-Pacific country offers universal maternity protection coverage, including for workers in the informal economy. While compulsory for formal employees (who receive a replacement rate of 100 per cent of their covered wage for four months), herders, self-employed persons and workers in the informal economy can join the social insurance scheme on a voluntary basis and receive maternity cash benefits for four months at a replacement rate of 70 per cent of their selected reference wage after 12 months of contributions. In addition, maternity cash benefits under the social insurance scheme are provided to all pregnant women and mothers of infants, regardless of their contribution to the scheme, their status in employment or nationality. Maternity care is provided through the universal (tax-funded) health-care system. Providing care services for garment factory workers and waste pickers In some South Asian countries, the law requires ready-made garment factories to 12