Workshop: Quality Public Child Care for all Informal Workers

Mexico City, Mexico

In the context of the recent introduction of the “right to care” to the Mexico City Constitution, WIEGO and OXFAM Mexico carried out a workshop about quality public child care for informal workers on July 24 2017. The workshop brought together informal workers representing five occupational groups in the city: street vendors, domestic workers, shoe-shiners, gas station attendants and waste pickers. The participants discussed their experiences and challenges accessing child care, and the impact of child care responsibilities on their paid work.

Marcelina Bautista, Founder and Director of the Center for Support and Training for Domestic Workers (Spanish acronym CACEH) spoke during the workshop about the linkages between paid domestic work and unpaid care work. Also, a representative from the Simone de Beauvoir Institute led an informational session about the child care resources available in Mexico City. The workshop represented the first step in a process of engaging membership-based organizations (MBOs) in Mexico City around the issue of child care through WIEGO’s Focal Cities project in Mexico City, and through the WIEGO Child Care Campaign.

WIEGO believes child care should be considered as a labour right and a core component of social protection systems, which allows for decent work conditions for informal workers and which provides a healthy beginning of life for their children.

Related Links:

• WIEGO Child Care Initiative (CCI) Page
• “Our Children Do Not Get the Attention They Deserve:” A synthesis of research findings on women informal workers and child care from six membership-based organizations by Laura Alfers.
• Women Informal Workers Mobilizing for Child Care: A report on mobilization efforts by membership-based organizations of informal workers by Rachel Moussie.
• Women and the 1% (in Spanish): An OXFAM report 2016