
Zhang Xiantu

Over the past few years, a troubling new trend at the international human rights level is being observed, where discourses on ‘protecting the family’ are being employed to defend violations committed against family members, to bolster and justify impunity, and to restrict equal rights within and to family life.
The campaign to "Protect the Family" is driven by ultra-conservative efforts to impose "traditional" and patriarchal interpretations of the family, and to move rights out of the hands of family members and into the institution of ‘the family’.
Since 2014, a group of states have been operating as a bloc in human rights spaces under the name “Group of Friends of the Family”, and resolutions on “Protection of the Family” have been successfully passed every year since 2014.
This agenda has spread beyond the Human Rights Council. We have seen regressive language on “the family” being introduced at the Commission on the Status of Women, and attempts made to introduce it in negotiations on the Sustainable Development Goals.
AWID works with partners and allies to jointly resist “Protection of the Family” and other regressive agendas, and to uphold the universality of human rights.
In response to the increased influence of regressive actors in human rights spaces, AWID joined allies to form the Observatory on the Universality of Rights (OURs). OURs is a collaborative project that monitors, analyzes, and shares information on anti-rights initiatives like “Protection of the Family”.
Rights at Risk, the first OURs report, charts a map of the actors making up the global anti-rights lobby, identifies their key discourses and strategies, and the effect they are having on our human rights.
The report outlines “Protection of the Family” as an agenda that has fostered collaboration across a broad range of regressive actors at the UN. It describes it as: “a strategic framework that houses “multiple patriarchal and anti-rights positions, where the framework, in turn, aims to justify and institutionalize these positions.”
Nuestro Fondo de Acceso ofrecerá un número limitado de becas para financiar la participación de activistas que de otra manera no podrían asistir y que no tienen relaciones con donantes que puedan cubrir su participación. Por lo tanto, si tienes otras posibilidades, te animamos a explorarlas. Haremos todo lo posible para ofrecer la mayor cantidad de becas y compartiremos más información sobre este proceso y cómo postular a principios de 2024.
El informe más reciente del Observatorio sobre la Universalidad de los Derechos desarma discursos como los de la «ideología de género», el «genocidio prenatal» y el «imperialismo cultural». También investiga los flujos de fondos para CitizenGo, la Alliance Defending Freedom/ADF Internacional y otros grupos anti-derechos. En este informe también se puede encontrar un análisis de los sistemas regionales de derechos humanos así como de las estrategias exitosas y los logros feministas.
There are varied conceptualizations about the commons notes activist and scholar Soma Kishore Parthasarathy.
Conventionally, they are understood as natural resources intended for use by those who depend on their use. However, the concept of the commons has expanded to include the resources of knowledge, heritage, culture, virtual spaces, and even climate. It pre-dates the individual property regime and provided the basis for organization of society. Definitions given by government entities limit its scope to land and material resources.
The concept of the commons rests on the cultural practice of sharing livelihood spaces and resources as nature’s gift, for the common good, and for the sustainability of the common.
Under increasing threat, nations and market forces continue to colonize, exploit and occupy humanity’s commons.
In some favourable contexts, the ‘commons’ have the potential to enable women, especially economically oppressed women, to have autonomy in how they are able to negotiate their multiple needs and aspirations.
Patriarchy is reinforced when women and other oppressed genders are denied access and control of the commons.
Therefore, a feminist economy seeks to restore the legitimate rights of communities to these common resources. This autonomy is enabling them to sustain themselves; while evolving more egalitarian systems of governance and use of such resources. A feminist economy acknowledges women’s roles and provides equal opportunities for decision-making, i.e. women as equal claimants to these resources.
Nuestrxs asociadxs globales y regionales nos han contactado con algunas ideas para reuniones pre-Foro, y pronto compartiremos más información sobre estas ideas.
Si planeas organizar una reunión antes del Foro, ¡por favor avísanos!
Muchas cosas hermosas surgieron del Foro de Feminismos Negros (BFF) de 2016, organizado por un Grupo Asesor y financiado por AWID. Parte del activismo independiente que surgió del BFF incluye al activismo feminista negro de Brasil. Si bien este año no tendremos otro BFF, seguimos comprometidxs a compartir algunas de las enseñanzas fundamentales con cualquier persona interesada en continuar el trabajo sobre el activismo feminista negro.
Nous pensons que oui ! Le processus de planification n'en est qu'à ses débuts, alors restez à l'écoute car les plans sont en pleine préparation.
Suivez notre super-héroïne alors qu'elle se lance dans une quête pour récupérer le récit des acteurs anti-droits à travers le monde.
Despite their rigidity in matters of doctrine and worldview, anti-rights actors have demonstrated an openness to building new kinds of strategic alliances, to new organizing techniques, and to new forms of rhetoric. As a result, their power in international spaces has increased.
There has been a notable evolution in the strategies of ultra conservative actors operating at this level. They do not only attempt to tinker at the edges of agreements and block certain language, but to transform the framework conceptually and develop alternative standards and norms, and avenues for influence.
Ultra conservative actors work to create and sustain their relationships with State delegates through regular training opportunities - such as the yearly Global Family Policy Forum - and targeted training materials.
These regular trainings and resources systematically brief delegates on talking points and negotiating techniques to further collaboration towards anti-rights objectives in the human rights system. Delegates also receive curated compilations of ‘consensus language’ and references to pseudo-scientific or statistical information to bolster their arguments.
The consolidated transmission of these messages explains in part why State delegates who take ultra-conservative positions in international human rights debates frequently do so in contradiction with their own domestic legislation and policies.
Anti-rights actors’ regional and international web of meetings help create closer links between ultra conservative Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), States and State blocs, and powerful intergovernmental bodies. The yearly international World Congress of Families is one key example.
These convenings reinforce personal connections and strategic alliances, a key element for building and sustaining movements. They facilitate transnational, trans-religious and dynamic relationship-building around shared issues and interests, which leads to a more proactive approach and more holistic sets of asks at the international policy level on the part of anti-rights actors.
States and State blocs have historically sought to undermine international consensus or national accountability under international human rights norms through reservations to human rights agreements, threatening the universal applicability of human rights.
The Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) has received by far the most reservations, most of which are based on alleged conflict with religious law. It is well-established international human rights law that evocations of tradition, culture or religion cannot justify violations of human rights, and many reservations to CEDAW are invalid as they are “incompatible with the object and purpose” of CEDAW. Nevertheless, reference to these reservations is continually used by States to dodge their human rights responsibilities.
‘Reservations’ to UN documents and agreements that are not formal treaties - such as Human Rights Council and General Assembly resolutions - are also on the rise.
In an alarming development, regressive actors at the UN have begun to co-opt existing rights standards and campaign to develop agreed language that is deeply anti-rights.
The aim is to create and then propagate language in international human rights spaces that validates patriarchal, hierarchical, discriminatory, and culturally relativist norms.
One step towards this end is the drafting of declarative texts, such as the World Family Declaration and the San Jose Articles, that pose as soft human rights law. Sign-ons are gathered from multiple civil society, state, and institutional actors; and they are then used a basis for advocacy and lobbying.
As part of a strategic shift towards the use of non-religious discourses, anti-rights actors have significantly invested in their own ‘social science’ think tanks. Given oxygen by the growing conservative media, materials from these think tanks are then widely disseminated by conservative civil society groups. The same materials are used as the basis for advocacy at the international human rights level.
While the goals and motivation of conservative actors derive from their extreme interpretations of religion, culture, and tradition, such regressive arguments are often reinforced through studies that claim intellectual authority. A counter-discourse is thus produced through a heady mix of traditionalist doctrine and social science.
This is one of the most effective strategies employed by the religious right and represents a major investment in the future of anti-rights organizing.
Youth recruitment and leadership development, starting at the local level with churches and campuses, are a priority for many conservative actors engaged at the international policy level.
This strategy has allowed for infiltration of youth-specific spaces at the United Nations, including at the Commission on the Status of Women, and creates a strong counterpoint to progressive youth networks and organizations.
When it comes to authoritative expert mechanisms like the UN Special Procedures and Treaty Monitoring Bodies and operative bodies like the UN agencies, regressive groups realize their potential for influence is much lower than with political mechanisms[1].
In response, anti-rights groups spread the idea that UN agencies are ‘overstepping their mandate,’ that the CEDAW Committee and other Treaty Bodies have no authority to interpret their treaties, or that Special Procedures are partisan experts working outside of their mandate. Anti-rights groups have also successfully lobbied for the defunding of agencies such as the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
This invalidation of UN mechanisms gives fuel to state impunity. Governments, when under international scrutiny, can defend their action on the basis that the reviewing mechanism is itself faulty or overreaching.
Conservative non-state actors increasingly invest in social media and other online platforms to promote their activities, campaign, and widely share information from international human rights spaces.
The Spanish organization CitizenGo, for example, markets itself as the conservative version of Change.org, spearheading petitions and letter-writing campaigns. One recent petition, opposing the establishment of a UN international day on safe abortion, gathered over 172,000 signatures.
By understanding the strategies employed by anti-rights actors, we can be more effective in countering them.
[1] The fora that are state-led, like the General Assembly, the Human Rights Council, and UN conferences like the Commission on the Status of Women and the Commission on Population and Development
El 14o Foro internacional de AWID tendrá lugar del 20 al 23 de septiembre de 2021 en Taipéi, Taiwán.
For additional questions, please use our contact form. We will keep updating this document based on the queries we receive from you!
Avec Lindiwe Rasekoala, Lizzie Kiama, Jovana Drodevic et Malaka Grant.
La creciente dominación de los mercados y las instituciones financieras internacionales en la definición de las políticas económicas globales ha tenido como resultado la captura del poder popular en aras del interés de las élites y las grandes corporaciones globales.
Este informe «Flujos financieros ilícitos» analiza su desproporcionado impacto de género y los marcos legales y políticos actuales que permiten a las corporaciones multinacionales beneficiarse del fraude fiscal en detrimento de las personas y el planeta.
El informe concluye con siete recomendaciones feministas de políticas para exigir transparencia y rendición de cuentas por parte del poder corporativo para frenar los flujos financieros ilícitos.
Los flujos financieros ilícitos están llamando la atención como nunca antes: ya sea en negociaciones para el desarrollo, como los que condujeron a la Agenda 2030 y a la Conferencia sobre Financiamiento para el
Desarrollo de Addis Abeba en 2015, u ocupando los titulares de los medios hegemónicos con la publicación de documentos filtrados sobre finanzas offshore conocidos como los «Panama Papers». En otro ejemplo, en un
referendum de febrero de 2017, el pueblo ecuatoriano votó para prohibir que políticxs y funcionarixs públicxs posean acciones, compañías o capital en paraísos fiscales. El Gobierno de Ecuador es ahora, dentro del grupo
G-77, una de las voces principales que reclaman en las Naciones Unidas la creación de un organismo tributario global para poner fin a los paraísos fiscales.
Esta atención pública potencialmente da impulso para que lxs feministas, los movimientos sociales y lxs defensores de la justicia tributaria presionen por la transformación del sistema financiero internacional, donde
se arraigan desigualdades globales, incluidas las desigualdades de género.
Ofrecemos aquí siete pedidos de políticas como contribución a los crecientes esfuerzos de incidencia de actores por la justicia social, feministas, por los derechos de las mujeres y por la igualdad de género.
4. Promover la transparencia y la recolección de datos con perspectiva de género:
7. Poner fin a la impunidad de las actividades delictivas asociadas con los flujos financieros ilícitos y garantizar la rendición de cuentas:
Pour la première fois, le Forum de l'AWID propose trois modes de participation :
Les participant.e.s se réuniront à Bangkok, en Thaïlande. Nous sommes impatient.e.s de vous y retrouver!
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