The United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) found that Ecuador violated Marcia Cecilia Trujillo Calero’s rights to social security, non-discrimination and gender equality under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) when it failed to provide her with timely and adequate retirement plan eligibility information and denied her pension based on disproportionate and discriminatory grounds.
Ecuador must submit a response to the Committee within six months of being notified of the decision and include information on measures that have been taken based on the recommendations of the Committee. Ecuador must also publish the Committee’s views and distribute them to the public. The Committee will, in turn, pursue its Follow-Up to Views procedure.
This decision marks the first time a United Nations treaty body has ruled on the link between unpaid care work and gendered access to social security. In doing so, the Committee advanced a strong articulation of the rights to social security and to substantive gender equality on a topic of global relevance. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), “[a]round the world, women spend two to ten times more time on unpaid care work than men.” This disproportionate burden of unpaid care work borne by women contributes to a worldwide pensions gender gap. According to a 2016 ILO study drawing on data from 107 countries, “[n]early 65 per cent of people above retirement age without any regular pension are women.” The International Labour Organisation (ILO) found that “the way in which inequalities in the labor market and in employment translate into the sphere of social protection often turns on the extent to which there are mechanisms in existence that can compensate for gender inequality in employment, such as the recognition of periods spent caring for children or older persons in the pension system.”
The Committee’s decision also provides a paradigmatic example of how an intersectional analysis can justify heightened scrutiny of potential sources of discrimination. In applying such a lens, the Committee made sure to look for disparities both in intent and result, as well as direct and indirect manifestations of discrimination. The result is a United Nations ruling calling out purportedly “neutral” regulations for their discriminatory harms to the rights of women performing unpaid care work. The decision thus represents a challenge to traditional conceptions of labor prevalent in social security schemes that do not duly value women’s unpaid care work. Importantly, the Committee also applied this analysis to non-contributive pension schemes based on age, noting that such systems should, “take into account the fact that women have a greater probability of living in poverty than men; that they often are the only ones responsible for the care of children; and that they, with greater frequency, lack contributive pensions.”
Special thanks to ESCR-Net member: Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy (PHRGE) at Northeastern University
Last updated on 28 August 2018
Ms. Trujillo was represented by the Public Defender’s Office (Defensoria del Pueblo) of Ecuador, including its office on the Rights of Good Living (Derechos del Buen Vivir). The following ESCR-Net members jointly filed a third-party intervention, as coordinated by ESCR-Net: Amnesty International, Asociación Civil por la Igualdad y la Justicia (ACIJ), Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR), Economic and Social Rights Centre – Hakijamii, Foro Ciudadano de Participación por la Justicia y los Derechos Humanos (FOCO), Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (GI-ESCR), International Women’s Rights Action Watch Asia Pacific (IWRAW AP), Legal Resources Centre (LRC), Social Rights Advocacy Centre (SRAC) and individual members Professor Lilian Chenwi (of the School of Law, University of Witwatersrand) and Viviana Osorio Pérez.