Elise Ama Esso
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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Para fortalecer nuestra voz y poder colectivos para obtener más y mejor financiamiento para las organizaciones feministas, por los derechos de las mujeres y de las personas LBTQI+ y demás organizaciones aliadas de todo el mundo.
What will be different about this Forum?
We have always worked towards ensuring that our Forums are co-developed with partners, movements and our priority constituencies.
For our upcoming Forum, we aim to deepen and strengthen that spirit and practice of co-creation and collaboration. We also recognize the need to improve the balance between the inclusion of many voices and experiences with room for participants and staff to breathe, take pause and enjoy some downtime.
This Forum will be different in the following ways:
- We will have far less organized Forum activities because we want people to have time to engage, experience, process, talk to each other, etc. This is key to communicate: you can come to the Forum, be very engaged and active and not facilitate any organized activity (or “session”).
- We will have Open Spaces - at least one whole afternoon without any organized activities - but also physical spaces available throughout the Forum for people to self-organize meetings, etc.
- We have a Content and Methodology Committee made up of feminists from different regions with expertise on participatory methodologies to support us and all those leading activities at the Forum to use creative and engaging formats for the Forum activities.
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Regardez le webinaire « Où est l'argent?» maintenant !
Le 11 juillet 2024, nous avons eu une conversation étonnante avec de grandes féministes sur l'état de l'écosystème du financement et le pouvoir du recherche « Où est l'argent ? ».
Un merci spécial à Cindy Clark (Thousand Currents), Sachini Perera (RESURJ), Vanessa Thomas (Black Feminist Fund), Lisa Mossberg (SIDA) et Althea Anderson (Fondation Hewlett).
N'oubliez pas que l'enquête restera ouverte jusqu'au 31 août 2024 !
How can I fund my participation in the AWID Forum? Many activists will not be able to afford the cost of the Forum – is AWID doing anything to provide assistance?
Please visit the "Funding ideas" page to get some ideas and inspiration for how you can fund your participation at the next Forum, including the limited support AWID will be able to provide.
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What if we perceived land and Nature not as private property to exploit, but as a whole to live in, learn from, and harmoniously coexist with? What if we repaired our relationships with the land and embraced more sustainable alternatives that nurture both the planet and its communities? Nous Sommes la Solution (We Are the Solution, NSS) is one of many women-led movements striving to do this. This is their story. |
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Rohini Ghadiok
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Recursos
Will there be pre-Forum convenings this time around?
We have been contacted by global and regional partners about some ideas for pre-Forum convenings and we will share more information about these ideas soon.
If you plan to organize a meeting before the Forum please let us know!
Many beautiful things emerged from the 2016 Black Feminisms Forum (BFF) that was organized by an Advisory Group and funded by AWID. Some of the independent organizing that arose from the BFF include Black feminist organizing in Brazil. While we won’t have another BFF this year, we remain committed to sharing some key learnings with anyone interested in continuing work around Black feminist organizing.
Luz Yeni Montaño
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Today, large-scale industrial food production uses single-crop plantations, genetically modified organisms and other pesticides that destroy the land and knowledge of local communities. |
Agroecology is a resistance to corporate-driven agriculture. It prioritizes smaller scale agriculture, multiple crops and diversified food production, and the centering of local knowledge and practices. Agroecology goes hand-in-hand with demands for food sovereignty, or the “right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems”(Via Campesina, Declaration of Nyéléni).
The role of women, indigenous and rural communities and people of color from the Global South is absolutely essential when it comes to food systems. Feminist agroecologists are working to dismantle oppressive gender roles and systems of patriarchy embedded within food production. As shown by the heroines of NSS, they are generating a liberatory agroecology by strengthening community resilience, empowering women peasants and farmers, and preserving local traditions, territories, and knowledge of food-producing communities.
Yelena Bonner
Je suis activiste à titre individuel, je ne travaille avec aucun groupe, organisation et/ou mouvement à l’heure actuelle, est-ce que je devrais participer à cette enquête?
Non, nous reconnaissons l’importance de votre travail, mais nous ne collectons pas les réponses fournies à titre individuel à l’heure actuelle.
Where and when will the next AWID Forum take place?
The 14th AWID International Forum will take place 20-23 September 2021 in Taipei, Taiwan.
Leticia Eulalia Mary Mukasa- Kikonyogo
Leticia était une avocate et juge ougandaise.
Avant de prendre sa retraite, elle a occupé de nombreux postes de haut niveau, notamment celui de membre de la cour d’appel et juge en chef adjointe de l’Ouganda. Elle a été la première femme ougandaise à occuper le poste de magistrat en chef entre 1973 et 1986 et la première femme à être nommée juge à la Haute Cour de justice en 1986.
Elle fut l'une des premières femmes à recevoir le titre de chevalier pontifical de l'histoire de l'Église catholique en Afrique. Elle est morte d'une crise cardiaque.
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