Social protection for mothers and children

• Social protection for mothers and children is an investment

• the inequitable distribution of care responsibilities is a source

of economic injustice for women, creating challenges that
most mothers face in trying to juggle care responsibilities with
paid work.
• As part of the ‘decent work’ agenda, it is high time
governments and employers address this issue and seriously
invest in supporting women, parents and other caregivers
doing this essential yet unpaid, mostly invisible work of caring
• First, unpaid care work must be recognized as work, essential work which
in the long-term benefits communities and society as a whole. It is
therefore also a collective responsibility.

• This means that every unpaid caregiver should have access to social
protection just like any other worker.

• In particular, every mother should have access to social security, healthcare,

pension and full maternity protection.

• Furthermore, we need to redefine “work” as a holistic concept, where both

paid and unpaid work are combined.

• The world of work must adapt to this reality, and private companies must
commit to supporting workers with care responsibilities.
• Second, social protection must be considered as an investment,
not as an expense that should be minimized.

• Supporting caregivers, parents especially, through targeted

public services , adequate social protection is investing in

people and families.

• Ultimately it is also about investing in children – and we know

how critical nurturing care is during early childhood.

• It is investment with high returns, especially for vulnerable

families.
• To conclude,
• Unpaid family care work is work, and a collective
responsibility, hence the need for universal social protection.
• Social protection must be considered as a long-term
investment.
• Ethnic & minorities groups

• Toward an inclusive and integrated social protection system

for every child, every mother, every older person and every
ethnic minority woman
• Nearly 33 million most vulnerable people, of which 48% were
women and girls, have received better social protection with a
life-cycle, gender-sensitive and shock-responsive approach
through the United Nations Joint Programme from the Joint
Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Fund.
• Four UN agencies:-
• the International Labour Organisation (ILO),
• the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP),

• the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and

• the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) jointly worked
with country’s Ministry of Labour, Invalid and Social Affairs,
the government implementing partner, to support the reform
of the social protection system and to assist the most
vulnerable and marginalised groups in recipient country. 
• Social protection is essential in preventing and reducing
poverty for children and families, in addressing inequalities
and in realizing children’s rights.
• Despite recent progress in many parts of the world, too many
children live in poverty and are deprived of their most
elementary rights.
• In, fact, in most parts of the world, children and families with
children are at greater risk of poverty than other groups of
the population, with respect to both monetary and other
forms of poverty.
•The consequences of poverty are very significant for children.
• Children experience poverty differently from adults; they have specific and
different needs.
•While an adult may fall into poverty temporarily, a child who falls into poverty may
be poor for a lifetime – rarely does a child get a second chance at an education or
a healthy start in life.
•Even short periods of food deprivation can be detrimental to children’s long-term
development.
• If children do not receive adequate nutrition, they lag behind their peers in size
and intellectual capacity, are more vulnerable to life-threatening diseases, perform
less well in school, and ultimately are less likely to be productive adults.
• Child poverty threatens not only the individual child, but is likely to be passed on
to future generations, entrenching and even exacerbating inequality in society.
• Many of the 18,000 children under the age of five who die every day,
mainly from prevent­able causes, could be saved through adequate social
protection.
• Where children are ­deprived of a decent standard of living, access to
quality health care, education and care, and where they suffer from social
exclusion, their future is compromised.
• Where children are forced to engage in child labour, such exploitation takes
a heavy toll on their physical and cognitive development, and on their
future life chances.
• Child poverty affects not only the well-being and aspirations of individual
children, but also the wider communities, societies and economies in which
they live.
• Leaving No One Behind: Social protection for children from
ethnic and linguistic minorities
• Poverty and discrimination, whether experienced separately or
simultaneously, can have a devastating effect on children’s
development, opportunities and outcomes.
• A child living in a poor household and deprived of basic
necessities may experience disadvantages even if he or she
belongs to the majority ethnic group in a country and speaks the
official language(s).
• Conversely, being born in a wealthy household, having
access to quality education and becoming a successful
professional in one’s adult life is no guarantee that a child
will not be confronted with discrimination and exclusion
for belonging to an ethnic and linguistic minority.
• When poverty and discrimination on the grounds of
ethnicity and language affect children at the same time,
the compound effects on children, known as
intersectionality, are greater than the sum of their parts.
• Adopt an “explicit but not exclusive” approach to universal social
protection
• The deprivation and marginalization that children from ethnic and
linguistic minorities face is symptomatic of the failure of social
protection systems for all children.
• Programmes that target only some communities or some children
are not likely to make any difference in the medium or long-term.
• Even well designed targeted interventions can have the
unintended consequences of creating or reinforcing perceptions of
unfairness by other segments of the population, potentially
leading to tensions.
• Children from ethnic and linguistic minorities might require extra
support to enjoy the right to social protection on par with their
peers.
• The main focus should be on building universal and integrated
systems, where explicit measures to ensure universal coverage for
minority groups are added on, and extended to all other children
and adults living in similar socioeconomic situations.
• Make social protection more physically and culturally accessible
• First, it is critical to ensure that information about social protection
programmes is available in the languages that people from ethnic and
linguistic minorities speak and read, and that it is disseminated through a
variety of channels.
• Second, it is important that social protection surveyors, administrators and
social workers are properly trained in human rights and multicultural
approaches. It is better still when adults from the relevant minorities are
incorporated progressively into the social protection workforce and in
other services that directly reach out to children.
• The ongoing reform of the Pantawid conditional cash transfer programme
in the Philippines, with support from the Asian Development Bank, is an
example of a social protection system moving in this direction.
• Third, to combat the exclusion and rejection that some minorities might
have historically felt, it is critical to shift to an “outreach” approach, where
systems contact children and adults living in poverty and facing vulnerability,
thus creating a relationship of trust.
• For the same reason, referral systems between the different professionals
that work with children from ethnic and linguistic minorities are essential.
• No country has the resources to send nurses, social workers, school
mediators and other social professionals frequently to every household, let
alone in remote areas.
• One encounter with a qualified professional, who proactively supports a
family to access different type of support available, can make a difference in
bridging this gap.
•The rights-based approach: promote participation and respect for cultural
identity

•Improving the situation of children from ethnic and linguistic minorities

means developing policies that identify and tackle all aspects of their

deprivation through an integrated approach that combines the protection of

fundamental rights and gender equality, the fight against discrimination, the

promotion of their culture and language, and respect for their identity.

•Taking into consideration the cultural dimension as well as the

gender perspective when designing

comprehensive, coherent and coordinated social protection strategies is a

prerequisite for their success.