Madelaine Parent
Protection of the Family
The Issue
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’.
“Protection of the Family” efforts stem from:
- rising traditionalism,
- rising cultural, social and religious conservatism and
- sentiment hostile to women’s human rights, sexual rights, child rights and the rights of persons with non-normative gender identities and sexual orientations.
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.
Our Approach
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.”
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No, you don't have to be an AWID member to participate but AWID members receive a discounted registration fee as well as a number of other benefits.
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Provide AWID members, movement partners and funders with an updated, powerful, evidence-based, and action-oriented analysis of the resourcing realities of feminist movements and current state of the feminist funding ecosystem.
Identify and demonstrate opportunities to shift more and better funding for feminist organizing, expose false solutions and disrupt trends that make funding miss and/or move against gender justice and intersectional feminist agendas.
Articulate feminist visions, proposals and agendas for resourcing justice.
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Groups, organizations and/or movements working specifically or primarily for women, girls, gender justice, LBTQI+ and allied people’s rights in all regions and at all levels, both newly formed and long-standing.
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In our 2015 Online Tribute we honor five Women Human Rights Defenders murdered in the Middle East and North Africa region. These defenders worked for women and civil rights as lawyers and activists. Their death highlights the often dangerous and difficult working conditions in their respective countries. Please join AWID in honoring these women, their activism and legacy by sharing the memes below with your colleagues, networks and friends and by using the hashtags #WHRDTribute and 16Days.
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Why did AWID choose Taipei as the location for the Forum?
We see Taipei as the location in the Asia Pacific region that will best allow us to build that safe and rebelious space for our global feminist community.
Taipei offers a moderate degree of stability and safety for the diversity of Forum participants we will convene. It also has strong logistical capacities, and is accessible for many travellers (with a facilitated e-visa process for international conferences).
The local feminist movement is welcoming of the Forum and keen to engage with feminists from across the globe.
Nuestra agrupación, organización o movimiento no ha tomado ni movilizado financiamiento de donantes externos, ¿deberíamos responder la encuesta?
¡Sí! Reconocemos y valoramos las distintas razones por las que los feminismos en sus contextos respectivos no cuentan con financiamiento externo, ya sea por no reunir los requisitos para solicitar donaciones o para recibir dinero del exterior, o bien porque se financian con recursos generados de manera autónoma como estrategia política en sí misma. Deseamos saber de ustedes con independencia de su experiencia de financiamiento externo.
Jane Julia de Oliveira
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Aquellas que dieron impulso a los movimientos
En el transcurso de sus vidas, 6 defensoras de derechos humanos de Europa occidental, Oriental, Central y del Sudeste investigaron, hicieron campañas y participaron en los movimientos de la paz y los derechos de las mujeres a través del activismo político y social o mediante la danza. Agradecemos su legado. Únete a AWID para honrar a estas defensoras de derechos humanos, su trabajo y su legado, compartiendo los memes aquí incluidos con tus colegas, amistades y redes; y tuiteando las etiquetas #WHRDTribute y #16Días.
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Patrona Benita Sandoval
