Published in Spanish in the newspaper El Salto and on the website of REAS red de redes.

In the framework of the feminist mobilisations on #8M, and as highlighted in the recent Intergenerational Dialogue on Care and Social Solidarity Economy, organised by the Gender Commission of RIPESS, care is not only an individual responsibility, but a collective and public issue.

RIPESS, the Intercontinental Network for the Promotion of the Social Solidarity Economy (SSE), is made up of continental networks present all over the world: in Spain there is the Network of Networks of Alternative and Solidarity Economy, REAS, which in turn is part of RIPESS Europe. 

More than 25 years ago, RIPESS was born with the purpose of promoting the Social Solidarity Economy, an alternative to the dominant economic and social system. In the SSE, the values core are cooperation, reciprocity, self-management, solidarity, mutuality, equality, along with struggles for social, racial and climate justice, as well as feminism, sustainability and food sovereignty. SSE entities develop alternative models in which the care and well-being of people and the planet are prioritized; as opposed to mere financial profit, which is replaced by the economic sustainability of the project.

The intercontinental gender commission is open to people working within SSE organisations that are members of RIPESS with a care perspective, and is also open to women and gender non-conforming people. With representation from all continents, we meet monthly to share, discuss, devise and design both awareness raising campaigns and projects where care and a gender perspective are at the centre. 

Need for deepening:

 The success of this webinar, with more than 300 people registered, demonstrates the need for debate, interaction, information and dissemination of the ecofeminist view of the Social Solidarity Economy. It also highlights the importance of recognizing the fundamental role of care in this eco-social and cultural transformation. Those of us who are part of the SSE are questioning ways of consumption and economic exchange outside the prevailing system; we are developing initiatives all over the world where people and the planet are at the centre: being cities and being taken into account.

Care on global agendas

The recognition of care as a key axis for equity and sustainable development has been advancing in the international arena at the political level for more than a decade:

The beginning was ILO Convention 189 (2011) which calls on States to “take measures to ensure the effective promotion and protection of the human rights of all persons engaged in domestic work”. Four years later, the 2030 Agenda reinforced this recognition with  Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5.4, which values unpaid domestic and care work through public policies and social protection. This goal seeks to “recognise and value unpaid domestic and care work through the provision of public services, infrastructure and social protection policies and the promotion of shared responsibility in the household and family, as appropriate at the national level”. 

Most recently, in April 2023, was adoptedUN Resolution A/RES/77/281 , marking a milestone in the history of SSE promotion. This resolution recognises the role of SSE in building sustainable and inclusive economic models. One year later, the UN went a step further by celebrating 29 October as the International Day of Care and Support. Its official statement underlined that “care work around the world continues to be characterised by a lack of benefits and protections, low pay or lack of compensation, and exposure to physical, mental and, in some cases, sexual harm. It is clear that new solutions are needed on two fronts: to the nature and provision of LA date care policies and services, and to the terms and conditions of care work”.

Finally, the ILO’s “Resolution concerning decent work and the care economy 2024” states that: “These efforts represent progress towards transforming the unequal division of care work between men and women into a more egalitarian organisation of care, promoting social co-responsibility between the State, the private sector, families, the social and solidarity economy (SSE) and the community (ILO, 2024, p. 2)“.

Demands 

Faced with this reality that places care as a political priority and a central issue in the public debate, the intercontinental SSE community that makes up RIPESS demands the recognition of care as a central pillar of our societies and economies, the redistribution of care through comprehensive and public care systems that recognise care as a human right, and the revaluation of care, promoting the Social Solidarity Economy. Although these international institutional documents create a framework from which to work, much remains to be done. However, there are people, especially women, who are already setting an example in the way care is practised in solidarity and collectively:

Real-life examples of care practices in the SSE:

We present outstanding examples of SSE projects in various regions, covering both initiatives where care is at the core of the activity or service and economic enterprise, as well as projects where care is integrated transversally. 

Amelia Campos participates every month from the Barcelona neighbourhood of Poble Sec, where, through the association of which she is a member, in the gender commission of RIPESS Mes que Cures, (a member of REAS), they provide a vision of inclusion. In their work, she and 30 other worker-members, 90 user-members and 20 volunteers seek the dignity both of the people who use the care and cleaning services they offer, and of themselves. Most of them are migrant women at risk of vulnerability and experts in the care and well-being of the community. From their association, they carry out their work with dignity, guaranteeing social and labour rights through a Social Solidarity Economy and self-employment initiative that they started almost 10 years ago.

Another committee member, Poonsap Tulaphan, is the coordinator Thailand of HomeNet and a member of RIPESS Asia (ASEC – Asian Solidarity Economy Council). Homenet Thailand is affiliated to Homenet Southeast Asia and Homenet International, and represents 5000 home-based workers in Thailand. They work collectively with the aim of harnessing the strength and solidarity of so many people to develop effective mechanisms to improve their livelihoods and working conditions. The majority of home-based workers are women who combine their unpaid domestic and care work with the production and processing of materials and food in their own homes, often in undignified and poorly paid conditions. Homenet Thailand works to ensure their fundamental rights and social protection so that they can exercise their rights and lead full and developed lives.

Ernestina Ochoa Luján, from Lima, Peru, has been collaborating for years in the school for women leaders and political empowerment that the Institute for the Promotion and Training of Domestic Workers – IPROFOTH – maintains with the self-managed work of the workers themselves. This is a platform with more than 40 years of experience in supporting domestic workers in Peru and which forms part of other networks for the positioning and political advocacy of domestic workers at the international level. One of these is WSM, with whom RIPESS works hand in hand through the INSP!R Network, a platform in defence of universal social protection for workers all over the world, especially in the global south. 

Domestic workers form a large international community under the umbrella of the International Domestic Workers’ Federation of which IPROFOTH is a member. This international community is increasingly advocating in an organised way for rights that have been denied to them throughout history due to a tradition of contempt for care work around the world that has been carried over centuries by patriarchy and the idea that cleaning, cooking, giving birth, caring… is not work.

The Social Solidarity Economy is increasingly consolidating itself as a response to these injustices from a cross-cutting gender perspective, with a focus on care as the driving force of life, respect for the environment and the well-being of all the people who inhabit this planet.