Access to affordable, high-quality child care is essential not just for women’s equality in employment but also for the full realization of women’s human rights. Canada has made little progress on child care in recent years, and current commitments are insufficient and fail to meet international standards set out in CEDAW (the UN’s Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women).
In this joint submission with the Coalition of Child Care Advocates of BC, we call on Canada’s provincial and federal governments to take meaningful action on child care to respect Canadian women’s basic rights under CEDAW. Such action is necessary if policy changes in other areas are to impact the everyday lives of women in concrete, positive ways.
Read our full submission, which coincides with the combined eighth and ninth periodic CEDAW reports by Canada (October 25, 2016), 65th Session.
Read our news alert to learn about the UN’s recommendations issued in November 2016 and how they reflect many of the points we made in our submission.