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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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Simone Jagger

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Simone a 20 ans d’expérience dans le soutien à la gestion et l’administration dans des organisations à but non lucratif, en particulier dans l’enseignement médical post universitaire et la formation aux Technologies de l'Information et de la Communication. Elle possède des qualifications en soutien à la gestion et en études parajuridiques. Elle est basée en Afrique du Sud, aime voyager et agit en tant que généalogiste amatrice.

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Nous avons le plaisir de vous présenter Sopo Japaridze, féministe féroce, dirigeante syndicale et présidente du syndicat de service indépendant Réseau de Solidarité.

Elle a quitté le pays très jeune pour les États-Unis, où elle est devenue politiquement active en tant qu'organisatrice syndicale. Elle a toujours gardé la Géorgie à l'esprit pendant tout ce temps, jusqu'au jour où, 20 ans plus tard, elle a décidé de revenir.

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Elle est aussi une chercheuse passionnée et une écrivaine. Elle étudie les relations de travail et les relations sociales, écrit pour diverses publications et est co-éditrice de Left East, une plate-forme analytique d'Europe de l'Est. Elle a également cofondé l'initiative et le podcast d'histoire politique, Réimaginer la Géorgie Soviétique, où elle explore les complexités et les nuances des expériences du pays sous l'Union soviétique, pour mieux comprendre son passé et construire un avenir meilleur.

Reason to join 4

Voyez grand ! Notre rayonnement international nous permet de combiner notre travail analytique avec des outils politiques et pratiques de plaidoyer et de transformation afin de faire avancer la cause des mouvements féministes à tous les niveaux.

O meu idioma não é um dos oficiais do inquérito, e estou a ter dificuldades a preencher o mesmo. O que posso fazer?

A AWID compromete-se a alcançar a justiça linguística e lamentamos que, neste momento, não seja viável disponibilizar um inquérito do WITM em mais idiomas. No entanto, caso precise de apoio com traduções ou queira preencher o inquérito em qualquer outro idioma, entre em contacto connosco através de witm@awid.org.

Nadine Ramaroson

Son soutien aux femmes et aux personnes les plus vulnérables de sa communauté a fait que Nadine était un modèle pour beaucoup. Elle était déterminée à aider les pauvres et les sans-abri en particulier.

Bien que sa mort ait été déclarée comme étant accidentelle, la famille Ramaroson, sur l’initiative de son père André Ramaroson, a mené une enquête qui a mis en évidence des preuves de son assassinat. Elle serait décédée dans un accident mortel survenu entre Soanierano - Ivongo et Ste Marie - une histoire qui a été réfutée par sa famille. Elle avait reçu de nombreuses menaces de mort pour ses positions politiques résolues. L’affaire est toujours en cours auprès des tribunaux à Antananarivo (la capitale de Madagascar).


 

Nadine Ramaroson, Madagascar

Nana Abuelsoud

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Nana is a feminist organizer and a reproductive rights and population policy researcher based in Egypt. She is a member of Realizing Sexual and Reproductive Justice (RESURJ), a member of the Advisory Board of the A Project in Lebanon, and a member of the Community Committee of Mama Cash. Nana holds an MSc in Public Health from KIT Institute and Vrije University in Amsterdam. In her work, she follows and contextualizes national population policies while building evidence that addresses modern eugenics, regressive international aid, and authoritarianism. Previously, she was part of the Geneva Foundation for Medical Education and Research, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, and Ikhtyar Feminist Collective in Cairo.

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UNION OTRAS

The Sex Workers' Trade Union Organisation (Organización de Trabajo Sexual, OTRAS) is the first union of sex workers in the history of Spain. It was born out of the need to ensure social, legal and political rights for sex workers in a country where far-right movements are on the rise.

After years of struggles against the Spanish legal system and anti-sex workers groups who petitioned to shut it down, OTRAS finally obtained its legal status as a union in 2021.

Its goal? To decriminalize sex work and to ensure decent working conditions and environments for all sex workers.

The union represents over 600 professional sex workers, many of whom are migrant, trans, queer and gender-diverse.

Our values - bodily autonomy

Bodily autonomy, integrity and freedoms<

We celebrate everyone's right to choose their identities, relationships, goals, work, dreams and pleasures, and what they do with their mind, body and spirit. We believe in working towards access to resources, information and safe and enabling environments that allow this to happen.

What is AWID?

The Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID) is an international feminist membership organization.

We work to achieve gender justice and women’s human rights by strengthening the collective voice, impact and influence of global women’s rights advocates, organizations and movements. 

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Snippet FEA Unio Otras Photo 3 (ES)

Foto de Sabrina Sánchez hablando junto a una pantalla del encuentro de Ilga World

Membership why page - Kirthi Jayakumar quote

Participé en una actividad solo para afiliadxs, y lo que me conmovió en particular fue ver cómo había espacio para que todas compartieran, y que no había ningún juicio al respecto. Toda la sesión fue enérgica y vibrante.- Kirthi Jayakumar, fundadora de The Gender Security Project, India

Вы просите указать название группы/организации и/или движения и контактную информацию – почему?

Мы запрашиваем эти данные, чтобы облегчить просмотр ответов, избежать дублирования и иметь возможность связаться с вашей организацией в случае, если вы не смогли завершить опрос и/или если у вас возникли сомнения или дополнительные вопросы. Здесь вы можете узнать больше о том, как мы используем личную информацию, которую собираем в ходе нашей работы.

Sylvia Rivera

Sylvia Rivera was a civil rights activist, a transvestite and sex worker.

Known as the New York Drag queen of color, Silvia was fierce and tireless in her advocacy, in defense of those who  were marginalized and excluded as the “gay rights” movement mainstreamed in the United States in the early 1970’s.

In a well-known speech on Christopher Street Day in 1973, Sylvia, shouted through a crowd of LGBT community members: 

“You all tell me, go and hide my tail between my legs.
I will no longer put up with this shit.
I have been beaten.
I have had my nose broken.
I have been thrown in jail.
I have lost my job.
I have lost my apartment.
For gay liberation, and you all treat me this way?
What the fuck’s wrong with you all?
Think about that!” 

In 1969, at age 17, Silvia took part in the iconic Stonewall Riots by allegedly throwing the second Molotov cocktail to protest the police raid of the gay bar in Manhattan. She continued to be a central figure in the uprisings that followed, organizing rallies and fighting back police brutality.

In 1970, Sylvia worked together with Marsha P. Johnson to establish Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (S.T.A.R.), a political collective and organisation that would set up projects of mutual support for trans people living on the streets, those struggling with drug addiction and in prisons and in particular for trans people of color and those living in poverty. 

Defiant of labels, Silvia lived life in a way that challenged people in the gay liberation movement to think differently. She said: 

“I left home at age 10 in 1961. I hustled on 42nd Street. The early 60s was not a good time for drag queens, effeminate boys or boys that wore makeup like we did. Back then we were beat up by the police, by everybody. I didn't really come out as a drag queen until the late 60s. when drag queens were arrested, what degradation there was. I remember the first time I got arrested, I wasn't even in full drag. I was walking down the street and the cops just snatched me. People now want to call me a lesbian because I'm with Julia, and I say, "No. I'm just me. I'm not a lesbian." I'm tired of being labeled. I don't even like the label transgender. I'm tired of living with labels. I just want to be who I am. I am Sylvia Rivera. 

Through her activism and courage, Sylvia offered a mirror that reflected all that was wrong within society, but also the possibility of transformation. Sylvia was born in 1951 and passed away in 2002. 

¿AWID es una organización feminista?

Snippet FEA Linda Porn Bio (FR)

Linda Porn est une autre héroïne de l'organisation syndicale féministe et de l'activisme des travailleur·euses du sexe au niveau national (en Espagne) et transnational.

Originaire du Mexique, elle vit en Espagne depuis les années 2000. Elle est travailleuse du sexe, militante, mère célibataire et artiste multidisciplinaire.

Puisant dans ces différentes identités, elle utilise la performance, l'art vidéo et le théâtre pour rendre visibles les luttes aux intersections du transféminisme, du travail du sexe, de la migration, du colonialisme et de la maternité. Elle combine l'art et le travail du sexe tout en prenant soin de sa fille en tant que mère célibataire.

Linda appartient également à des groupes de travailleur·euses du sexe qui luttent pour leurs droits, comme le syndicat OTRAS et CATS Murcia. Elle a également cofondé le groupe 'Madrecitas' - qui rend visible et dénonce la violence institutionnelle raciste contre les familles migrantes. Violence à laquelle elle et sa fille ont été soumises en tant que travailleuse du sexe et mère célibataire migrante.

Ne ratez pas son travail artistique ici!

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