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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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¿Quién debería responder la encuesta?*

La encuesta está orientada a agrupaciones, organizaciones y movimientos que trabajan específica o primordialmente por los derechos de las mujeres, las personas LBTQI+ y la justicia de género, en todos los contextos, en todos los ámbitos y en todas las regiones. Si alguno de estos es el pilar fundamental de tu agrupación, colectivo, red o cualquier otro tipo de organización —ya sea que esté registrada, sea de reciente creación o de larga data—, te invitamos a responder la encuesta.

*En esta oportunidad, no estamos solicitando respuestas de individuos ni de fondos feministas o de mujeres.

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Promotion des droits universels et de la justice

Eradiquer les fascismes et les fondamentalismes

Partout sur la planète, les défenseur·e·s féministes, des droits des femmes et de la justice de genre remettent en question les programmes des acteurs fascistes et fondamentalistes. Ces forces opprimantes prennent pour cibles les femmes, les personnes non conformes dans leur identité de genre, leur expression et/ou orientation sexuelle, ainsi que d’autres communautés opprimées.


Les idéologies discriminatoires sapent et s’emparent de nos systèmes et normes en termes de droits humains de manière à ce que seuls certains groupes aient l’exclusivité des droits. Face à cela, l’initiative Promotion des droits universels et de la justice (Advancing Universal Rights and Justice, AURJ) s’attache à promouvoir l’universalité des droits - le principe fondamental selon lequel les droits humains sont le bien de chaque être humain, quelle que soit son identité, et ce sans exception.

Nous créons un espace pour permettre aux mouvements et à nos allié·e·s féministes, en faveur des droits humains et de la justice de genre de se reconnaître, d’élaborer des stratégies et de recourir à des actions collectives afin de contrecarrer l’influence et l’impact des acteurs anti-droits. Nous cherchons également à faire avancer les cadres, les normes et les propositions féministes et relatifs aux droits des femmes, ainsi qu’à protéger et promouvoir l’universalité des droits.  


Nos actions

A travers cette initiative, nous visons à :

  • Enrichir nos connaissances : Dans le cadre du rôle de premier plan que nous assurons sur la plateforme collaborative, l’Observatoire de l'universalité des droits (Observatory on the Universality of Rights, OURs), l’AWID soutient les mouvements féministes, en faveur des droits des femmes et de la justice de genre en diffusant et vulgarisant des connaissances et des messages clés concernant les acteurs anti-droits, leurs stratégies et leur impact au sein des organismes internationaux de protection des droits humains.

  • Promouvoir des programmes féministes : Nous faisons des alliances avec des partenaires au sein d’espaces internationaux dédiés aux droits humains, notamment le Conseil des droits de l’homme, la Commission de la population et du développement, la Commission de la condition de la femme et l’Assemblée générale de l’ONU.

  • Créer et élargir les alternatives : Nous impliquons nos membres afin de garantir que les engagements, les résolutions et les normes à l’échelle internationale sont reflétées et réintroduites dans l’organisation d’autres espaces à l’échelle locale, nationale et régionale.

  • Mobiliser des actions solidaires : Nous agissons aux côtés de défenseuses des droits humains (women human rights defenders, WHRD), y compris de défenseur·e·s trans et intersexes et de jeunes féministes, et oeuvrons à contester les fondamentalismes et les fascismes tout en attirant l’attention sur les situations à risque.   

 

 

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