- This is the first time that an international court has ruled on the right to care, recognizing that all people have the right to care, receive care and exercise self-care.
- In Latin America and the Caribbean, women spend three times more time on unpaid caregiving tasks than men, which responds to gender stereotypes.
- The recognition of this right obliges States to implement public policies to enable caregivers and those receiving care to provide for their well-being in an autonomous manner.
August 7, 2025. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) recognized today for the first time that care is an autonomous human right and that, consequently, all people have the right to care, to be cared for and to take care of themselves.In Advisory Opinion 31, the highest human rights court in the region established that the right to care implies that people have access to time and space to exercise this right, thus developing their life project with autonomy.
The Court accepted the arguments of the Center for Reproductive Rights, Ipas Latin America and the Caribbean and a broad coalition of feminist and human rights organizations, and recognized that self-care is intrinsically linked to sexual and reproductive health. This recognition implies that States must guarantee access to information and services that enable people to make free and informed decisions about fundamental aspects of their lives, such as pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood.
Women perform 76.2% of all unpaid care work in the world; in other words, they spend 3.2 times more time than men on these life-sustaining tasks. This feminization of care deepens gender inequalities, affects reproductive autonomy and limits equal opportunities, which perpetuates structural discrimination against women. Along these lines, the Court recognized that this situation is aggravated when other discriminatory factors such as age, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, migratory status, disability and phenomena such as teenage pregnancy are intertwined.
“Today, with the IACHR Court’s decision, a historical debt has been settled in a society that never understood care as a right, but rather as a role assigned to women, based on discriminatory stereotypes. By recognizing it as an autonomous human right, care -and self-care- can be exercised in conditions of true equality, freely and with dignity. Adopting measures to eradicate gender stereotypes about caregiving and promoting access to comprehensive health services focused on people’s wellbeing, such as sexual and reproductive health, will be crucial for the enjoyment of this right to become a reality.” said Catalina Martínez Coral, vice-president for Latin America and the Caribbean of the Center for Reproductive Rights.
The Inter-American Court stressed that the right to care cannot be fully exercised without an intersectional approach that confronts the structural causes of its unequal distribution. In particular, it requires States to adopt public policies, legal, educational and labor reforms that promote the equitable distribution of care, including the recognition of the economic value of care; mandatory paternity leave, paid and comparable to maternity leave; labor flexibility for caregivers; and community support networks.
With this Advisory Opinion, the Court recognized that, in order to guarantee the right to self-care, States must ensure the provision of sexual and reproductive health services that promote access to accurate and timely information on reproductive health to all persons, as well as the obtaining of free, prior and informed consent in this area.
“We recognize the progress represented by the IACHR Court’s declaration of care as an autonomous human right and the link between self-care and sexual and reproductive health. This ruling reaffirms that in order to achieve gender equality, States must guarantee that women and people with the possibility of gestation decide about their bodies and have the necessary information and resources to do so. The recognition of care as a right brings us closer to a society where living, deciding and caring in freedom are a reality“. said Marisol Escudero Martínez, deputy director of Advocacy at Ipas Latin America and the Caribbean.
Advisory Opinion 31 of 2025 marks a milestone for international human rights law and for feminist and social movements that, for decades, have demanded the recognition of care as a matter of social justice.
With this pronouncement, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights establishes a precedent that could transform the legal and social landscape in Latin America, making it clear that care is a collective responsibility that involves families, communities, businesses, civil society and the State; and that society as a whole must support both those who care for and those who require care.
The recognition of the right to care, and its close relationship with sexual and reproductive health, represents a decisive step towards guaranteeing personal autonomy, the development of life projects and a dignified existence for all people, regardless of gender, origin or social status.
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