A/68/293 women in all forms of education, and encourage types of education that will break these stereotypes. 46 4. Right to health 43. The right to health 47 may also be affected by unpaid care work. There are limits to how much care a person can give without negative impacts on their own health. Thus, when public policies implicitly assume the free and limitless availability of unpaid care, and fail to take it into account by supporting, funding or provisioning care, this can have a major impact on the health of women caregivers and the quality of care that they are able to provide. 44. Unpaid care work can be arduous, stressful, emotionally difficult and even dangerous — for example through exposure to communicable diseases, fumes or burns from cooking stoves or risk of attack or assault while fetching fuel or water. If left unsupported, the mental and physical health of women with heavy unpaid care responsibilities may deteriorate dangerously; 48 for example studies show that HIV/AIDS caregivers experience a negative impact on physical and mental health. 49 Moreover, women with heavy unpaid care workloads may not be able to access adequate healthcare for lack of time or money. This is especially so in contexts where there is no free universal basic healthcare, or where communities living in poverty are underserved by health services. 50 45. The right to health requires States parties to provide quality and accessible health care and take measures to ensure the underlying determinants of health. This includes access to safe and potable water and adequate sanitation, an adequate supply of safe food, nutrition and housing, and also healthy occupational and environmental conditions, 51 which clearly many unpaid caregivers living in poverty do not enjoy. 46. As part of their core obligations States must ensure the right of access to health facilities, goods, information and services — including in the area of sexual and reproductive health — on a non-discriminatory basis, especially for vulnerable or marginalized groups. 52 They must therefore remove all barriers to access for women living in poverty with unpaid care responsibilities, and provide services that are sensitive to gender and life-cycle requirements, including the demands and constraints of unpaid care work, for example by providing childcare facilities and __________________ 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 12/24 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, article 10 (c). International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, article 12. For example, according to Carers UK research, 79 per cent of unpaid carers in Scotland experience mental ill-health as a result of caring. Scottish Human Rights Commission, Getting it Right? Human Rights in Scotland, October 2012; available from www.scottishhumanrights.com. Olagoke Akintola, “Towards equal sharing of care responsibilities: learning from Africa”, paper prepared for an Expert Group Meeting organized by the Division for the Advancement of Women of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat, 6-9 October 2008. A. E. Yamin, “Toward transformative accountability: applying a rights-based approach to fulfil maternal health obligations”, Sur — International Journal on Human Rights, vol. 7. No. 12 (June 2010). Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comment No. 14, para. 11. Ibid., paras. 11 and 21. 13-42271