Using the public services framework to guarantee children’s right to care in Chile: GI-ESCR and partners proposal to the Committee of the Rights of the Child

In light of the 90th session of the Committee of the Rights of the Child where it will be concluding the sixth and seventh periodic reports of Chile, GI-ESCR and Public Services International submitted a brief to highlight the ways in which the standards set out by the Global Manifesto for Public Services can be useful to operationalise and bring forward renewed quality public care services that respect, protect and fulfill children’s rights.

The presentation states that these principles can achieve a better protection of children’s social rights through the incorporation of children’s views in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of public care services and the availability of resources to cover them. They can also provide a comprehensive framework to encompass several of the Committee’s preoccupations included on the List of Issues prior to reporting (LoIPR) such as the business sector’s role in the protection of children’s rights, the respect for the views of the child, the support of parents with children under alternative care, the permanent monitoring of the quality of care and the service standards on different sectors such as education, health and social security, among others.

The submission also suggests solutions. The incorporation of this framework requires the promotion and universalisation of the concept of quality public care services as well as the reclaiming of their public nature, thus restoring the duty and primary responsibility of the State to provide them. It also demands guaranteeing that sufficient resources are available to cover for these quality care services. 

Ahead of these challenges, the presentation also points to some other instruments that can be useful in this endeavor. For example, the Principles for Human Rights in Fiscal Policy can provide useful tools to budgeting with a human rights based approach, while the Care Manifesto provides broad strategies to rebuild the social organization of care.

The document finished with some suggestions for the concluding observations of the Committee, including the consideration of the concept of Public Care Services to address the challenges faced by Chile’s new Childhood Protection Service, the inclusion of the public service standards reflected in the Global Manifesto for Public Services, the restoration of the State’s duty and its primary responsibility to provide public care services, thus reversing the commercialization of these kind of services, and using the Principles for Human Rights in Fiscal Policy for the correct allocation of resources aimed at the fulfillment of children’s rights in line with a human rights based approach.