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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.”

 

Related Content

AWID為何決定將論壇舉辦地點從峇里島移師到台北呢?

自2019年年末在印尼發生的一連串事件中,我們觀察到了當地軍事緊張與對同志權益的反彈跡象,AWID希望多元的與會者能在論壇齊聚一堂,但這讓我們自問是否能為與會者維持合理安全和讓人感到被歡迎的環境。

經過仔細商討後,AWID董事會在2019年11月決定將第十四屆AWID國際論壇的舉辦地點由峇里島改至台北。

台北擁有穩健的勤務服務能力,對旅客友善(針對國際論壇參與者提供便利的電子簽證流程)。

更多資訊請見以下 :

¿Quiénes deberían participar en la encuesta?

Agrupaciones, organizaciones y movimientos que trabajan específica o primordialmente por los derechos de las mujeres, las niñas, la justicia de género, las personas LBTQI+ y demás personas aliadas en todas las regiones y en todos los ámbitos, ya sean estas de nueva creación o de larga data.

English title

This is a French article

- created from the French site

Snippet FEA Ecofeminism (EN)

WEST AFRICA

NOUS SOMMES LA SOLUTION
We are the Solution

ECOFEMINISM:

Respect for all we have around us

Notre groupe, organisation et/ou mouvement n’a pas accepté ou demandé de fonds de financeurs extérieurs, pouvons-nous quand même participer à l’enquête?

Oui, tout à fait! Nous reconnaissons et comprenons les différentes raisons pour lesquelles les féministes de tous contextes ne recourent pas au financement extérieur, pouvant aller de ne pas être éligibles à demander des subventions et/ou recevoir de l’argent de l’étranger, à compter sur des ressources générées de manière autonome (ressource en anglais) en tant que stratégie politique à part entière. Nous vous invitons à participer, peu importe votre expérience du financement extérieur.

Elisa Badayos

Elisa était la coordinatrice de l'organisation de défense des droits humains Karapatan, dans la province de Negros Oriental aux Philippines.

Elle organisait également les communautés urbaines pauvres dans la province de Cebu et travaillait avec Desaparecidos, une organisation de familles de disparu-e-s.

Le 28 novembre 2017, lors d'une mission d'enquête sur des violations des droits fonciers dans la région, Elisa et deux de ses collègues ont été abattu-e-s par deux hommes non identifiés à Barangay San Ramon, ville de Bayawan, dans la province de Negros Oriental.

Elle laisse quatre enfants derrière elle.

 


 

Elisa Badayos, Philippines

L’activisme au Moyen-Orient et en Afrique du Nord

Notre hommage en ligne met à l’honneur cinq défenseuses des droits humains assassinées au Moyen-Orient ou en Afrique du Nord. Ces défenseuses étaient avocates ou militantes et ont œuvré pour les droits des femmes ou pour les droits civils. Leur mort met en évidence les conditions de travail souvent difficiles et dangereuses dans leurs pays respectifs. Nous vous invitons à vous joindre à nous pour commémorer la vie, le travail et l’activisme de ces femmes. Faites circuler ces mèmes auprès de vos collègues et amis ainsi que dans vos réseaux et twittez en utilisant les hashtags #WHRDTribute et #16Jours.


S'il vous plaît cliquez sur chaque image ci-dessous pour voir une version plus grande et pour télécharger comme un fichier 

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Snippet FEA Mariama Sonko (EN)

This is Mariama Sonko, an inspiring small-scale rural farmer, eco-feminist and a woman human rights defender.

She lives in Niaguiss, a town in the southwest of Senegal. Growing up in a family and community of rural farmers, she witnessed the essential role of women in food production and seed preservation from a very early age, while also being immersed in the rhythms and working of the land. Mariama has been defending local agricultural knowledge and peasant practices since the 1990s. As a mother of five children, the food she grows herself is the main source of sustenance for her family.

She is currently the president of “Nous Sommes la Solution'' and is involved in promoting agroecological practices and family farming, encouraging food sovereignty, biodiversity and farmer seed preservation, and demanding equitable access to resources and land for women across West Africa.

Source: AWID’s Feminist Realities Festival Crear | Résister | Transform - Day 2/ 2ème jour/ 2º día

My language is not one of the official survey languages and I am struggling to complete it, what can I do?

AWID is committed to language justice and we regret that, at this point, having the WITM survey available in more languages is not feasible. However, if you need support with translations or want to fill the survey in any other language, please reach out to us at witm@awid.org.

Mona Chemali Khalaf

Mona was an economist and an independent consultant on gender and development issues.

She was  a former Professor of Economics and Director of the Institute for Women's Studies in the Arab World at the Lebanese American University. 

She passed away suddenly on January 6, 2018. 

Friends and former colleagues say of Mona: “When we celebrate her life, the best thing we can do is commit to continuing what she started: gender equality no matter what.”

 


 

Mona Chemali Khalaf, Lebanon

WHRDs from Sub-Saharan Africa

In our 2015 Online Tribute to Women Human Rights Defenders No Longer With Us we are commemorating four women from Sub-Saharan Africa, three of whom were murdered due to their work and/or who they were in their gender identity and sexual orientation. Their deaths highlight the violence LGBT persons often face in the region and across the globe. Please join AWID in honoring these women, their activism and legacy by sharing the memes below with your colleagues, networks and friends and by using the hashtags #WHRDTribute and #16Days. 


Please click on each image below to see a larger version and download as a file

 

Snippet FEA Objectives NSS Advocacy (EN)

INCIDENCIA POLITICA

Yellow circle with illustration of a brown woman with a white t-shirt holding a blue loudspeaker.
Influir en tomas de decisiones políticas y promover un acceso más equitativo a la tierra para las mujeres que trabajan en la agricultura

Nuestra agrupación no ha recibido financiamiento externo entre 2021 y 2023, ¿a pesar de ello, deberíamos responder la encuesta?

Sí, aún así deseamos saber de ustedes aunque no hayan recibido financiamiento en los tres, dos o cualquiera de los años comprendidos entre 2021 y 2023.