A/68/293 development. 11 This imbalance has a number of causes, including limited access to public services for people living in poverty, lack of adequate infrastructure in the regions and communities where they live, and lack of resources to pay for care services or time-saving technology. 15. For example, inadequate State provision of key infrastructure such as energy and water and sanitation facilities has a disproportionate impact on poor women and girls living in rural areas in developing countries, who spend large amounts of time collecting water and fuel for household use. Studies indicate that in sub-Saharan Africa 71 per cent of the burden of collecting water for households falls on women and girls, 12 who in total spend 40 billion hours a year collecting water, equivalent to a year’s worth of labour by the entire workforce in France. 13 16. Not only do women living in poverty perform the lion’s share of unpaid care work, they also stay poor because they do so. Dedication to unpaid care work and resulting scarcity of time have significant financial and opportunity costs that perpetuate poverty among women. 17. Intensive unpaid care workloads create chronic time deficits, limiting opportunities for women and girls to access and progress in education, participate in income-earning activities and accumulate retirement incomes and savings, contributing to their higher vulnerability to poverty. Constraints imposed by care responsibilities also contribute to the concentration of women in low-waged, precarious, unprotected employment, in hazardous or unhealthy conditions with high risk to their health and well-being. Such jobs are less likely to enable them to lift themselves out of poverty. Ultimately, the combination of lack of time and social subordination restricts women’s ability to participate on an equal footing in public life. 18. The situation is often even worse for women who experience discrimination and social exclusion on other grounds, such as ethnicity, race, colour, health or marital status. For example, in some countries discriminatory beliefs about marginalized ethnic minorities exacerbate their marginalization and are linked to the common overrepresentation of women of marginalized ethnic groups in low-paid unprotected work. 19. States’ neglecting or failing to address women’s disproportionate unpaid care workload can be seen as a major failure to comply with the obligations regarding equality and non-discrimination which are the pillars of international human rights law. 14 States must take all necessary measures to ensure that unpaid care work does not have a disproportionate impact on women’s enjoyment of rights, and create the conditions to ensure that it is undertaken on a basis of equality between men and women. __________________ 11 12 13 14 6/24 See, for example, Australian Human Rights Commission, Investing in Care: Recognising and Valuing Those Who Care, vol. I, Research Report (Sydney, 2013). The Millennium Development Goals Report 2012 (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.12.I.4). UNDP, Resource Guide on Gender and Climate Change (2009). See, inter alia, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, articles 2 (1) and 3; International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, articles 2 (2) and 3; and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, especially articles 2 (f), 5 (a) and 11. 13-42271