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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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On Wednesday a note arrives
with an address on the back.

    5 pm, tonight.

The handwriting on the invitation—
coily and brusque—
I’ve seen it five times in five years.

My body rouses,
feverish.

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taste time and space, etch them 
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The creature motions me closer.

Their gestures write a sentence;
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    wither, flesh, bliss

On their command, the vine that covers the hallway
hugging warm stones,
snakes up the wall.

It becomes a verb,
“to climb,”
and I’m reorientated when their claws point 
to the vine-bed in the center.

I hear the wheels behind me, 
then that sound. 
It reverberates
like no other.
Their long black wings
elevate toward the ceiling
then they lunge forward.

The feline vision scans every detail,
every change,
every longing.

Can desire liquefy your muscles? 

    Can it act sweeter than the strongest 
of tranquilizers?

A lynx sews the world
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weaving lace around my knees.

Can desire crush the distance of the world, 
compressing the seconds?

They come closer still,
lynx eye meeting human eye,
sniffing the air,
turning body into
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They beat down their wings.
Stirred,
the vines tangle around my waist/waste.

Their tongue thins time,
shifting grounds,
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    I see the world in you, and the 
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Lucy O.

Biography

Con más de 10 años de experiencia en finanzas, Lucy ha dedicado su carrera a misiones con y sin fines de lucro. También ha prestado trabajo voluntario para organizaciones sin fines de lucro. Desde el acelerado mundo de las finanzas, Lucy siente pasión por estar al día con las competencias tecnológicas asociadas con este ámbito. Lucy se incorporó a AWID en 2014. En su tiempo libre disfruta de la música, de viajar y de practicar una variedad de deportes.

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Will there be accessibility measures at the Forum?

In short, yes! AWID is currently working with an Accessibility Committee to ensure that the Forum is as accessible as possible. We are also conducting an accessibility audit of the Forum venue, surrounding hotels and transportation. Detailed information about accessibility at the AWID Forum will be available in this section before the registration opens. Meanwhile, for any questions please contact us.

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Kasia soutient le travail des mouvements féministes et de justice sociale depuis 15 ans. Avant de rejoindre l'AWID, Kasia dirigeait les politiques et le plaidoyer d’ActionAid et d’Amnesty International, tout en se mobilisant avec des féministes et des groupes de justice sociale en Pologne pour l'accès à l'avortement et la lutte contre les violences aux frontières européennes. Kasia est passionnée par le ressourcement des organisations féministes dans tout leur courage, leur richesse et leur diversité. Elle partage son temps entre Varsovie et son village communautaire de bricolage dans la forêt. Elle adore les saunas et aime follement son chien Wooly.

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عودةٌ إلى ذواتنا

بالنسبة إليّ، هذه الأنواع من الدردشات كانت ضمن تعابير الحبّ التي أتاحت لي الحياة أن أستمتع بها حديثًا فقط. ما كنت أعرف أن هذه الأشكال الأخرى ممكنة – تلك التي توجَد خارج نطاق ورشات العمل، أو أماكن الناشطين أو غرف الصفّ أو أماكن العمل.

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Marta is a queer, transfeminist non-binary activist-researcher from ex-Yugoslavia, currently based in Barcelona. They work as a transnational movement organizer, a feminist economist and a weaver of systemic alternatives. They are the co-founder and one of the coordinators of the Global Tapestry of Alternatives, a global process that seeks to identify, document and connect alternatives on local, regional and global levels. Locally, they are engaged in anti-racist, transfeminist, queer, migrant organizing. They also hold a doctoral degree in Environmental Science and Technology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, dedicated to decolonial feminist perspectives of a pluriverse of systemic alternatives and the creation of feminist alternative systems based on care and the sustainability of life. During their free time, they enjoy boxing, playing the guitar and the drums as part of a samba band, photography, hiking, cooking for loved ones and spoiling their two cats.

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Elina es una joven feminista afrodominicana, que trabaja con enfoque interseccional. Es abogada de derechos humanos y está comprometida a usar su voz y sus capacidades para construir un mundo más justo, empático e inclusivo. Ingresó a la facultad de derecho a los 16 años, segura de que iba a obtener herramientas para entender y promover la justicia social. Luego de obtener el título de Juris Doctor [Doctora en Jurisprudencia] en la República Dominicana, cursó una maestría en Derecho Internacional Público y Derechos Humanos en el Reino Unido, como becaria Chevening. Fue la única mujer latinoamericana-caribeña en su clase y se graduó con honores.

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