On 27 May, following an invitation from the Chilean Senate's Committee on Family, Children, and Adolescents, together with Public Services International, Corporación Humanas, Centro de Estudios de la Mujer, Observatorio de Género y Equidad, and the Nada Sin Nosotras platform, we presented inputs to the Senate, to highlight a human rights-based approach to care and support systems.

In the context of the processing of the bill recognising the right to care and creating the National System of Support and Care (bulletin 16905-31), our Executive Director, Camila Barretto Maia, highlighted how the bill's presentation fulfills the commitments adopted by the State of Chile in the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the Buenos Aires Commitment, making positive and decisive progress towards building a caring society, defining the human right to care, and consolidating care as a public good.

Also, our Public Services and Care Program Officer, Valentina Contreras Orrego, outlined some of the project's remaining challenges and proposed improvements that could substantially strengthen the project, such as:

- Incorporating the four dimensions of the human right to care (to care, to be cared for, to care for oneself, and to care for the environment);

- Protecting the system from the market economy, commercialisation, and financialisation, with the State retaining control over service provision and regulating the limits, forms, and responsibilities of private entities within the system; and

- Ensuring the system's financing, incorporating the Ministry of Finance and the Budget Directorate among the relevant state actors for the model.

Following the hearing, which included presentations by union representatives, caregiver organisations, and think tanks, the Senate Committee on Family, Children, and Adolescents approved the bill by four votes to one. This means the bill will continue its analysis through the regular procedure and will soon be reviewed by the whole Senate floor. 

Read our full minutes here, and watch the bill's live progress here (both in Spanish only).