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.”

Related Content
Mariam Mekiwi | Snippet ES

Mariam Mekiwi es una cineasta y fotógrafa de Alejandría. Vive y trabaja en Berlín.
Co-Creating Feminist Realities
What are Feminist Realities?
Feminist Realities are the living, breathing examples of the just world we are co-creating. They exist now, in the many ways we live, struggle and build our lives.
Feminist Realities go beyond resisting oppressive systems to show us what a world without domination, exploitation and supremacy look like.
These are the narratives we want to unearth, share and amplify throughout this Feminist Realities journey.
Transforming Visions into Lived Experiences
Through this initiative, we:
-
Create and amplify alternatives: We co-create art and creative expressions that center and celebrate the hope, optimism, healing and radical imagination that feminist realities inspire.
-
Build knowledge: We document, demonstrate & disseminate methodologies that will help identify the feminist realities in our diverse communities.
-
Advance feminist agendas: We expand and deepen our collective thinking and organizing to advance just solutions and systems that embody feminist values and visions.
-
Mobilize solidarity actions: We engage feminist, women’s rights and gender justice movements and allies in sharing, exchanging and jointly creating feminist realities, narratives and proposals at the 14th AWID International Forum.
The AWID International Forum
As much as we emphasize the process leading up to, and beyond, the four-day Forum, the event itself is an important part of where the magic happens, thanks to the unique energy and opportunity that comes with bringing people together.
We expect the next Forum to:
-
Build the power of Feminist Realities, by naming, celebrating, amplifying and contributing to build momentum around experiences and propositions that shine light on what is possible and feed our collective imaginations
-
Replenish wells of hope and energy as much needed fuel for rights and justice activism and resilience
-
Strengthen connectivity, reciprocity and solidarity across the diversity of feminist movements and with other rights and justice-oriented movements
Learn more about the Forum process
We are sorry to announce that the 14th AWID International Forum is cancelled
Given the current world situation, our Board of Directors has taken the difficult decision to cancel Forum scheduled in 2021 in Taipei.
Related Content
Pagination
¿Habrá apoyo para materiales u otros costos preparatorios para los talleres?
Contarás con todos los materiales estándar para talleres y presentaciones: rotafolios, marcadores, notas autoadhesivas, así como proyectores y equipos audiovisuales. Cualquier material adicional será responsabilidad de lxs organizadorxs de la actividad. El equipo de logística de AWID estará disponible para responder preguntas y aconsejar.
Yaneth Alejandra Calvache Riveros
Disintegration | Title Snippet AR
تَفَسُ
مُقتَبَس من قصّة لإيستر لوبيز
تصوير: مريم مكيوي
تصميم وعرض الملابس: النمرة
Parveen Rehman
Hospital | Content Snippet EN
“Now might be a good time to rethink what a revolution can look like. Perhaps it doesn’t look like a march of angry, abled bodies in the streets. Perhaps it looks something more like the world standing still because all the bodies in it are exhausted—because care has to be prioritized before it’s too late.”
- Johanna Hedva (https://getwellsoon.labr.io/)
Hospitals are institutions, living sites of capitalism, and what gets played out when somebody is supposed to be resting is a microcosm of the larger system itself.
Institutions are set out to separate us from our care systems – we find ourselves isolated in structures that are rigidly hierarchical, and it often feels as if care is something done to us rather than given/taken as part of a conversation. Institutional care, because of its integration into capitalist demand, is silo-ed: one person is treating your leg and only your leg, another is treating your blood pressure, etc.
Photographer Mariam Mekiwi had to have surgery last month and documented the process. Her portraits of sanitized environments – neon white lights, rows after rows of repetitive structures – in a washed-out color palette reflect a place that was drained of life and movement. This was one of the ways Mariam kept her own spirit alive. It was a form of protest from within the confines of an institution she had to engage with.
The photos form a portrait of something incredibly vulnerable, because watching someone live through their own body’s breakdown is always a sacred reminder of our own fragility. It is also a reminder of the fragility of these care systems, which can be denied to us for a variety of reasons – from not having money to not being in a body that’s considered valuable enough, one that’s maybe too feminine, too queer or too brown.
Care experienced as disembodied and solitary, that is subject to revocation at any moment, doesn’t help us thrive. And it is very different from how human beings actually behave when they take care of each other. How different would our world look like if we committed to dismantling the current capitalist structures around our health? What would it look like if we radically reimagined it?
Concepcion Brizuela
Laura Leonor Vásquez Pineda
Contenido relacionado
IM Defennsoras: Asesinan a Laura Leonor Vásquez Pineda, defensora del territorio
Observatorio para la Protección de los Defensores de Derechos Humanos: Guatemala: Asesinato de la defensora de la tierra y el medio ambiente Laura Leonor Vásquez Pineda
Informe Anual 2011

Con el propósito de cumplir su misión, AWID trabaja a través de programas multianuales interconectados.
Cada programa comprende diversas estrategias que abarcan desde la generación y difusión de conocimientos, investigación aplicada, incidencia política y formación de alianzas, hasta convocatorias a diálogos estratégicos.
En nuestro Informe Anual 2011 encontrarán una síntesis de los principales logros alcanzados en cada una de los programas de AWID durante el año.
CREDITS | Content Snippet EN
Credits
|
Editorial Team Design and Illustration Communications Strategist
Translation Manager AWID’s Team |
Arabic Translators English to Spanish Proofreaders Proofreaders Portuguese to English Proofreader |
Nahia Sediqi
AWID EN 2015: Construire notre impact collectif

En 2015, l’AWID s’est développée et diversifiée.
Nous avons redoublé d’efforts pour préparer le 13e Forum de l’AWID ; nous avons consacré une grande partie de notre énergie au Programme de développement pour l’après-2015 et aux processus des Nations Unies relatifs au financement du développement. Nous avons poursuivi le travail de fond que nous menons dans nos domaines de prédilection.
- S’opposer aux fondamentalismes religieux
- Défenseuses des droits humains
- Justice économique
- Ressources pour les droits des femmes
- Activisme des jeunes féministes
Coup d'oeil à l'intérieur du rapport
Le contexte
- Nous constatons toujours la dégradation rapide de la démocratie et des institutions démocratiques, ainsi que le rétrécissement concomitant des espaces ouverts à la dissidence.
- Des crises systémiques multiples et simultanées (énergétique, alimentaire, financière et climatique) aggravent les inégalités et créent des difficultés majeures Les grandes entreprises jouent un rôle prépondérant dans l’élaboration des priorités du développement.
- La violence qui s’exerce contre les défenseuses des droits humains reste un problème à traiter d’urgence.
- Les fondamentalismes religieux sont omniprésents et gagnent en puissance.
- De nouvelles formes de violences en ligne fondées sur le genre ont fait leur apparition.
En réaction, nous avons choisi de sortir de nos cloisonnements.
De plus en plus, et dans le monde entier, les mouvements de défense des droits des femmes s’allient avec d’autres mouvements pour exprimer la nature systémique et intersectionnelle des problèmes précédemment évoqués et d’autres problématiques.
Notre impact
- Pour élaborer des stratégies et des actions de plaidoyer, nous devons connaître les faits
- Pour échanger les connaissances et agir solidairement, nous avons besoin d’une solide communauté en ligne
- Pour construire notre pouvoir collectif, nous devons collaborer
- Pour influencer mes processus internationaux, nous devons améliorer notre accès et amplifier nos voix
- Pour reposionner le pouvoir, nous devons rendre visible et souligner l’importance du rôle que jouent d’ores et déjà les mouvements féministes et les mouvements de défense des droits des femmes
Nos Members

Lire le rapport complet
Communicating Desire | Small Snippet AR
التعبير عن الرغبة وغ
وغيرها من الممارسات السياسيّة الأيديولوجيّة المجسَّدة
المضيفة: نحن نميل إلى الاعتقاد أنّ التعبير عن الرغبة يقتصر على العلاقة الحميمة داخل غرفة النوم وعلى علاقاتنا الشخصيّة. ولكن هل يمكننا أيضًا اعتبار هذا النوع من التعبير كبُنية، أو ممارسة أيديولوجيّة توجّه عملنا، وما نحن عليه، وكيف سنكون في هذا العالم؟
Isabel Martinez Martinez
Rapport Annuel 2010

Notre rapport annuel 2010 souligne nos réalisations et l’impact de notre travail durant l'année.
Vous pouvez lire comment nous traduisons notre vision et mission en stratégies et en activités entreprises en collaboration avec les membres, partenaires et allié-e-s de l’AWID pour faire la promotion des droits des femmes et de l’égalité de genre à l’échelle mondiale.
Ce rapport comprend égalment des liens vers nos dernières publications.
Luz Yohana Lopez Vidal
Stephanie Bracken
Stephanie Bracken est une féministe qui se consacre à la construction et au soutien de systèmes solides qui répondent aux besoins du moment et des personnes qui interagissent avec eux, tout en servant les principes de justice. Elle est titulaire d'un master en droits humains de l'Université de Sydney et d'une licence en études de genre, histoire et philosophie de l'Université McGill. Elle possède une expérience de travail avec des organisations féministes et de justice sociale dans les domaines du suivi, de l'évaluation et de l'apprentissage, de la planification stratégique du travail, de la gouvernance, de la gestion de projet et de la création de systèmes et de processus opérationnels. Stephanie est basée à Tiohtià:ke/Montréal, où elle aime chanter avec d’autres, camper, pratiquer les arts textiles et passer du temps avec ses enfants et sa communauté.
