Overview
Our July 2016 law reform report High Stakes: The impacts of child care on the human rights of women and children is the culmination of our our Right to Child Care project. The report calls on BC to take immediate steps to adopt and implement the $10aDay Plan to make child care significantly more affordable for all, ensure free care for families with lower incomes, and ultimately improve access to high-quality care for every child in BC who needs it. It also recommends that the BC government to take urgent action to provide free child care immediately to those families with the greatest need.
At the heart of the High Stakes report are diverse women’s real-life stories, shared in the form of affidavits, about how the inadequacy of the child care system has impacted them and their children—undermining their safety, well-being, and human rights. The report analyzes the legal implications of these harms through the lenses of human rights, constitutional, and international law. It concludes that the current state of child care services in BC violates the human rights of women and children in complex and wide-ranging ways. We believe that BC has a responsibility to implement a coordinated, comprehensive solution to the inadequacies of the current child care system in order to end these human rights violations.