Brazil’s National Care Policy: Law No. 15.069

Brazil’s Law No. 15.069, published on 24 December 2024, establishes a national care policy. Article 8 identifies priority groups on both sides of care, including paid and unpaid carers. A service can reach more people while depending on poorly protected workers. The law gives both questions a place in assessing expansion.

What makes a service usable locally?

Article 9 brings health, education, transport and social protection into the national plan. A service may exist and still be out of reach if a person lives too far away, cannot pay for travel or has no one to take over their caring duties. Articles 10–11 call for coordination between federal and local authorities, where those barriers can become identifiable responsibilities.

The law connects unpaid burdens to the gendered, racial and social division of labour. Good data can track how much service was added and who took on the work. Article 13 lists funding sources subject to budget conditions. The test of the framework lies in actual services, spending and employment protections.

How responsibility leaves the household

Article 1 names the rights to receive care, provide it and care for oneself. Article 2 makes care a responsibility of multiple levels of government shared with families, businesses and civil society. Article 4 then differentiates the work involved. Its fifth objective addresses exploitation and precarious conditions in paid care. The sixth concerns recognising, reducing and redistributing unpaid care. A policy that delivers services to families can be evaluated alongside the working conditions under which it delivers them.

Read Article 9 from the perspective of a person making an application. It puts the geographic distribution of services, coordination among authorities and continuing training in the same plan. Who explains eligibility, how far away is the service, and who takes responsibility after a referral? One agency can report a completed handoff while the applicant still has several steps to go. Whether the new institutional arrangements shorten that journey is one measure of the responsibility actually taken on by public services.

The Tlatelolco Commitment provides a regional counterpart for comparison. The two texts belong to different moments and institutions: one can ask how the regional language of rights relates to Brazil’s assignment of responsibilities.

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