Fabiola Osorio Bernáldez
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
2019: Feminist Realities in a changing world
AWID began preparing this annual report just as the global pandemic began to unravel how we gather, organize and live our lives. It is impossible to review what we have done without COVID-19 tinting our assessment.
Download the full 2019 Annual review
Co-Creating Feminist Realities is no longer just an AWID Forum theme - it is a rallying cry in response to a pandemic that has laid bare the failures of social, political and economic systems.
It is an urgently needed affirmation that there are other, more just ways of organizing our lives. During 2019 hundreds of groups shared their experiences and proposals for feminist realities with us, ranging from radical networks of community support in Latin America facilitating self-managed abortion, to practices of community-centered economies in Indonesia and community-centered food systems in India and the US, to a re-imagination and new practice of harm-free rites of passage in Sierra Leone. These are the experiences that will chart a path forward for a “new normal”.
Yet long histories of oppression and violence can make it difficult to imagine the possible. A key part of our work in 2019 was to spark these explorations through a toolkit AWID launched to support groups interested in unearthing the stories and aspirations that are the building blocks of feminist propositions.
While we focus on our proposals for a different world, we recognize the challenging context around us.
Through the Observatory on the Universality of Rights, Feminists for a Binding Treaty, Count Me In! and other alliances, AWID has continued to push back against unfettered corporate power and fascist and fundamentalist agendas that undermine women’s rights and gender justice. With dim prospects for transformative change through multilateral processes and limited responsiveness from most states, we are redoubling our efforts to ensure that feminist movements, in all their diversity, are resourced in ways that match the critical roles they play - supporting their communities, demanding rights and responding to crises. In 2019 we introduced feminist principles and approaches to ground-breaking funds like the Spotlight Initiative and the Equality Fund, and succeeded in leveraging resources through feminist reality seed grant funding from feminist funders.
As we look ahead, it is clear that the context is calling for a transformation of our organizing strategies:
- we are learning to navigate global advocacy confined to online channels,
- we grapple with the uncertainty of when and how we can convene in person, and
- we use the tools at our disposal to tighten connections across local to global spheres.
AWID is embarking on a new membership model that lowers barriers to access and emphasizes opportunities for engagement and cross-member connection. We will continue to experiment with different online tools and processes for building community. Cross-movement engagement will stay at the center of our work. AWID’s actions in solidarity with oppressed movements and identities, even and especially where these are marginalized in feminist movements, are important to drive change and support broad and inclusive movements for all.
Crisis is not new to feminist and social movements.
We are resilient, we adapt, and we show up for each other. And we have to keep doing better. Thank you to all who are part of the journey with us.
Download the full 2019 Annual review
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จากงบประมาณในส่วนของการสร้างการเข้าถึงของเราจะสามารถมีทุนจำกัดจำนวนสำหรับสนับสนุนการเข้าร่วมของนักกิจกรรมที่ไม่สามารถหาทางอื่นๆได้และอีกทั้งยังไม่มีความสัมพัยธ์กับแหล่งทุนที่สามารถสนับสนุนการเข้าร่วมของพวกเขา โดยหากคุณมีหนทางเป็นไปได้อื่นๆกรุณาลองติดต่อประสานงานดูก่อน ส่วนพวกเราจะพยายามอย่างสุดความสามารถที่จะจัดให้มีทุนสนับสนุนให้มากที่สุดเท่าที่จะมากได้ และเราจะแจ้งรายละเอียดของกระบวนการสมัครเพื่อรับทุนนี้ในช่วงต้นปี 2567
Madiha El Safty
Madiha fue una destacada profesora de Sociología con activa participación en la sociedad civil como defensora de los derechos de las mujeres en la región árabe.
Presidió la Alianza para las Mujeres Árabes y dentro del Consejo Nacional de Mujeres fue miembro del Comité de la Sociedad Civil y del Comité para el Desarrollo de la Gobernación de Minia. Fue autora de numerosas publicaciones en las que analizó y arrojó luz sobre las desigualdades de género y la discriminación contra las mujeres.
Es recordada con cariño por colegas, estudiantes y amigxs.
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Margarita is a feminist and LGBTIQA activist from Latin America; her passion is social transformation and collective wellbeing. She holds degrees in Psychology, Communications and Public Administration, as well as certificates in Public Policy, Leadership, Management & Decision Making. In her professional capacity, Margarita has had extensive experience with grassroots organizations, national and regional NGOs, universities and the public sector, developing facilitation, capacity building, political advocacy, communications & policy assessment.
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Special Projects Manager
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São Paulo, Brésil
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Amal Bayou
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Amal was a civil society activist and a member of various social and political initiatives. She assisted the families of martyrs and the disappeared, and was a founding member of a youth initiative called ‘’Youth of Benghazi Libya”. In the 2014 parliamentary elections, Amal was elected to the House of Representatives with more than 14,000 votes (the highest number of votes anyone received in the 2014 elections).
Amal will remain in the memories of many as a woman politician working to ensure a better future in one the most difficult and conflict-ridden contexts in the region.
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Sara AbuGhazal es una feminista palestina que vive en Beirut. Es cofundadora de Sawt al-Niswa, un colectivo que produce conocimiento en Beirut. Es codirectora de The Knowledge Workshop [«Taller del conocimiento»], una organización feminista con sede en Beirut que trabaja en la historia oral y el archivo feminista. Sara es actualmente la Coordinadora Regional de la Coalición Regional para Defensoras de los Derechos Humanos en el Medio Oriente y África del Norte.
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Snippet FEA Introducing Carmen Silva Ferreira (EN)
We have the pleasure to introduce you to Carmen Silva Ferreira.
She was born in Bahia, the Northeastern part of Brazil. She is an immigrant, a social activist and a mother of 8 children.
Carmen experienced homelessness at the age of 35, after migrating to Sao Paulo on her own. This led her to become a fierce advocate for vulnerable, marginalized and invisibilized communities most affected by the housing crisis. She eventually became one of the founders of MSTC in 2000.
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To know more about her life, you can follow her on Instagram!
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Selena “Rocky” Malone
Rocky mostró un liderazgo y una dirección inspiradoras en su trabajo con jóvenes lesbianas, gays, bisexuales, transgénero, intersex, queer, y personas transgénero indígenas de Australia (LGBTIQBBSG) en riesgo.
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En 2016, en la Corte Suprema de Brisbane, Michael Kirby, ex juez del Tribunal Supremo de Apelaciones, mencionó por su nombre a Rocky al elogiar el trabajo que el Servicio Legal LGBTI había desarrollado a lo largo de los años. Rocky luchó de forma extraordinariamente tenaz por los derechos humanos de la comunidad LGBTIQBBSG, corrió los límites y produjo cambios de una forma respetuosa y amorosa.
