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Special Focus

AWID is an international, feminist, membership organisation committed to achieving gender equality, sustainable development and women’s human rights

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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Protection of the Family - Opposition Views

New conservative alliance:

Conservative organizing and policy

State supporters

Snippet FEA Georgia's minimum wage (FR)

Le salaire minimum en Géorgie est l’un des plus bas dans le monde. Cette réalité touche surtout les femmes.

Non seulement le pays a un écart de rémunération important entre les genres, mais les femmes travaillent également des heures plus longues et moins réglementées avant de rentrer chez elles pour s'occuper des tâches ménagères et de leur famille. Il n'y a pas de congé de maternité, pas d'augmentation de salaire pour les heures supplémentaires, pas d'assurance-chômage, et pas de congé de maladie ou d'autre protection sociale. Sous la pression d’organisations occidentales, les partis politiques oligarchiques géorgiens ont mis en œuvre des réformes qui détruisent l'État-providence, augmentent les mesures d'austérité et aggravent l'exploitation des travailleur·euses, le tout au profit des grandes entreprises qui applaudissent le pays pour sa «facilité à faire des affaires». Les médias, cooptés par des intérêts privés et corporatifs, sont partiaux sur ces questions ou les réduisent au silence. L'organisation syndicale reste l'une des rares options pour lutter pour les droits humains fondamentaux et pour tenir l'État et les entreprises responsables des violations et persécutions quotidiennes et généralisées contre les travailleur·euses, et en particulier les femmes.

Source: Minimum-Wage et entretien avec Sopo Japaridze dans Open Democracy

Samira Khalil

Samira fue una activista siria bajo el régimen de Bashar al-Asad.

Desde muy joven, se opuso a todas las formas de despotismo, especialmente en relación al régimen autoritario en el que vivía. En 2013, Samira fue secuestrada junto a otrxs tres destacadxs activistas. Se cree que se la llevaron del Centro para la Documentación de Violaciones de Duma, en el área rural de Damasco.

El principal sospechoso de su desaparición es el Ejército del Islam (el cual niega estar involucrado). No ha habido una investigación formal de la desaparición de Samira y desde entonces no se ha sabido nada de ella. Samira estaba comprometida con su país y se negaba a abandonar Siria hasta tanto no sintiera que su trabajo por el empoderamiento de las mujeres y en la documentación de los crímenes ya no fuera necesario.


 

Samira Khalil, Syria

O nosso grupo, organização e/ou movimento não recebeu ou mobilizou financiamento de financiadores externos. Devemos participar no inquérito?

Sim! Reconhecemos e valorizamos diferentes motivos pelos quais as feministas nos seus respetivos contextos não dispõem de financiamento externo: desde não serem elegíveis para se candidatar a subsídios e/ou receber dinheiro do exterior, até dependerem de recursos gerados autonomamente como uma estratégia política por si só. Queremos saber mais sobre vocês, independentemente da vossa experiência com financiamento externo.

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TEST - MAP

WHRD Tribute - 2017

We can have an intro here

And maybe a little bit more text here

Snippet FEA collaborator and allies Photo 5 (EN)

This photo represents a group of 15 workers sitting together in a living room with white walls. Some are sleeping, others are standing, talking with each other, or watching their phones.

Dora Nkem Akunyili

Née dans l'État de Benue, au Nigeria, Dora était une pharmacienne experte et érudite ainsi qu’une dirigeante communautaire de renommée mondiale.

Lorsqu'elle est devenue directrice générale de l'Agence nationale pour la gestion et le contrôle des aliments et drogues (NAFDAC) entre 2001 et 2008, son travail d’envergure révolutionnaire a initié un changement de paradigme au sein de la fonction publique nigériane. Au cours de son mandat, elle a mené des réformes dans l'application des politiques et des réglementations qui ont permis de réduire de manière radicale le nombre de faux médicaments qui ont affecté le secteur pharmaceutique nigérian.

Après avoir incarné la réalité d’une femme courageuse et compétente qui a défié les maux d’une société à dominante patriarcale et qui a conduit au changement, elle est devenue une icône de l’émancipation des femmes. Entre 2008 et 2010 elle a été nommée ministre de l'Information et de la Communication. 

Elle est décédée des suites d'un cancer et laisse dans le deuil son mari, ses six enfants et ses trois petits-enfants.


 

Dora Nkem Akunyili, Nigeria

ما هي لغات استطلاع "أين المال" الرسمية؟

حالياً سيتواجد الاستطلاع على منصة KOBO باللغات العربية، الإنجليزية، الفرنسية، البرتغالية، الروسية والاسبانية. ستكون لديكم/ن الفرصة لاختيار اللغة التي تريدون تعبئة الاستطلاع بها في بداية الاستطلاع.

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The Devil is in the Details

Free ebook on Women's rights and Religious fundamentalisms

Religious fundamentalisms have particularly high costs for women and girls

Download ebook

In a global picture of rising religious fundamentalisms, this ebook details the grave human rights violations, and violations of women’s rights in particular, caused by state-sponsored fundamentalism, as well as by fundamentalist non-state actors such as militias, religious community organizations, and individuals.

It is vital to promote intersectional feminist understandings of power and privilege, and to apply these to questions of religion and culture.

Read more on women's rights

Snippet FEA lines of work Against (ES)

Ilustración un libro rosa que dice "Derechos laborales" con una X roja

VIOLACIONES DE DERECHOS LABORALES

Nadine Ramaroson

Nadine was a role model to many for her work supporting women and the most vulnerable in her community. She was committed to helping the poor and homeless in particular.

Though her death was reported as an accident, the Ramaroson family, led by her father, André Ramaroson led an investigation that pointed to evidence that she had been murdered. She is reported to have died in a fatal accident occurred between Soanierano - Ivongo and Ste Marie - a story that has been refuted by her family.

She received numerous death threats for her bold political positions. Her case remains in court in Antananarivo (the capital of Madagascar). 


 

Nadine Ramaroson, Madagascar

Наша группа не имела ежегодного финансирования в период с 2021 по 2023 год. Можем ли мы пройти опрос?

Да, мы хотим получить ваш ответ, независимо от того, сколько раз (один, два или три) вы получали финансирование в период между 2021 и 2023 годами.

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