Livraria • Plan International - Girls' Rights Platform - Girls' rights are human rights: Positioning girls at the heart of the international agenda

Unpaid care work and women's human rights 2013, para. 39

Paragraph text: Unpaid care work can also compromise the enjoyment of the right of girls and women to education. Entrenched gender stereotypes about the place of women in the home and the family, and the unpaid care work girls and women are expected to perform throughout their lives, often deprive women and girls of time, autonomy and choice to exercise this right.

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Paragraph text: States must take all appropriate measures to ensure that women can enjoy the same access to, quality of and opportunities in education and training as men. The prohibition against discrimination in relation to the right to education applies fully and immediately to all aspects of education; therefore States must ensure that girls and women can enjoy their right to all types and levels of education on an equal basis with boys and men. This may require the adoption of concrete measures to ensure that unpaid care work in the home does not interfere with their schooling, for example, providing accessible public services and adequate infrastructure to support the unpaid care work in households and communities and reduce its time burden. According to the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, States' obligations in regard to the right to education encompass ensuring that communities and families are not dependent on child labour and that third parties, including parents and employers, do not stop girls from going to school.

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Paragraph text: Owing to structural discrimination, girls are sometimes taken out of school to undertake unpaid care work, such as housework and care of younger children. Even more frequently girls' equal chances to achieve in education are hampered because they have less time for studying, networking or socializing at school as a result of these duties. This is likely to occur especially when mothers are disabled or deceased, as girls are expected to assume their unpaid care obligations. For women with children, lack of support, from within the household and from the State, may mean that they have to forsake skills development, training opportunities and further education in order to undertake childcare and domestic work. Therefore, women and girls are not able to enjoy their right to education, or its positive effects such as empowerment and economic opportunity, on an equal basis with men, with great social and economic losses to the society as a whole.

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