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
Puis-je communiquer cette enquête à d’autres?
Oui, n’hésitez pas à le faire! Nous vous encourageons à communiquer le lien vers l’enquête à vos réseaux. Plus les points de vue exprimés et collectés seront divers, plus notre compréhension du paysage du financement de l’organisation des mouvements féministes sera exhaustive.
Quelle est l’origine de ce projet?
Nous croyons que l'économie, le marché, le système financier et les prémisses sur lesquelles ils reposent sont des domaines critiques pour la lutte féministe.
Ainsi, notre vision pour une économie juste dépasse la promotion des droits et de l'autonomisation des femmes sur le marché. Elle propose d'évaluer le rôle des oppressions liées au genre lors de l'élaboration de mesures économiques, afin de les modifier pour favoriser l'égalité de genre et la justice économique.
Processus
Nous ne partons pas de zéro et nous ne sommes pas seules à tenter de mettre en avant des propositions féministes pour une économie juste. Beaucoup des propositions formulées dans ce document existaient déjà en théorie et aussi dans la pratique, au sein de diverses communautés qui défient et résistent face aux systèmes économiques fondés sur la croissance et le marché.
Il est également très important de noter qu'il y a une prise de conscience croissante du fait que les micros solutions n’apportent pas toujours de réponses aux problèmes macros, même si elles représentent des espaces importants pour la construction de la résistance et des mouvements. Certaines alternatives spécifiques peuvent ne pas être en mesure de remédier aux injustices du système capitaliste actuel à l'échelle mondiale.
Objectifs
Cela dit, les alternatives féministes pour une économie juste sont essentielles pour ouvrir des brèches dans le système et pouvoir en tirer des leçons, en faveur d’un changement systémique transformateur. Nous n’avons pas la prétention de proposer un compte-rendu complet et exhaustif sur la manière de créer un modèle économique qui soit juste d’un point de vue féministe, ou même des modèles.
À partir d’un dialogue inter-mouvements avec des syndicats, des mouvements ruraux et paysans et des mouvements environnementaux, nous pouvons néanmoins formuler une série de propositions pour cheminer vers cette vision.
Que voulons-nous changer?
Le modèle néolibéral qui domine l'économie mondiale a démontré à maintes reprises son incapacité à traiter les causes profondes de la pauvreté, des inégalités et de l'exclusion. En réalité, le néolibéralisme a même contribué à provoquer et à exacerber ces injustices.
Caractérisées par la mondialisation, la libéralisation, la privatisation, la financiarisation et l'aide conditionnelle, les politiques générales de développement de ces trois dernières décennies ont fait des ravages dans la vie et les moyens de subsistance de tous et toutes. Ces politiques ont également contribué sans faillir à creuser le fossé des inégalités, aux injustices de genre et à une destruction de l'environnement que le monde ne peut plus se permettre de supporter.
Il y a encore des personnes qui affirment qu’en donnant carte blanche aux sociétés et aux entreprises pour favoriser la croissance économique, le vent finira par atteindre les voiles de tous les navires.
Cependant, la notion du développement dominante au cours des dernières décennies, qui repose en grande partie sur le principe d’une croissance économique illimitée, traverse actuellement une crise idéologique.
Le mythe de la croissance économique en tant que panacée capable de résoudre tous nos problèmes prend l’eau.
Voir également
Snippet FEA NSS Quote (ES)
“Los saberes y prácticas indígenas siempre han apoyado la soberanía alimentaria, y ese saber está en manos de las mujeres […] El ecofeminismo para mí es el respeto por todo lo que tenemos a nuestro alrededor” -
Mary Assaad
Experte en développement social et anthropologue de formation, Mary était surtout connue pour être une pionnière de la lutte contre les mutilations génitales féminines (MGF).
Née au Caire en 1922, les travaux de Mary en matière de développement ont commencé tôt, dès son adhésion à la YWCA (Association chrétienne des jeunes femmes). Mary était membre du Conseil œcuménique des Églises et s'est progressivement intéressée aux questions relatives à la santé des femmes. Sa longue lutte contre les MGF a porté ses fruits en 2008, lorsque l'Egypte a finalement criminalisé cette pratique.
On se souvient d'elle comme d'une mentor pour de nombreuses féministes et militant-e-s égyptien-ne-s
Kasia Staszewska
Kasia has been supporting the work of feminist and social justice movements for the last 15 years. Before joining AWID, Kasia used to lead policy and advocacy for ActionAid and Amnesty International while organizing with feminists and social justice groups in Poland for access to abortion and against violence on the European borders. Kasia is passionate about resourcing feminist organizing in all their boldness, richness and diversity. She shares her time between Warsaw and her DIY community village in the forest. She loves saunas and is crazy about her dog named Wooly.
Cristina Morales Jose
Snippet - WITM To share - AR

لمشاركة تجاربكم/ن المعاشة بما يتعلق بتمويل منظمتكم/ن
Reclaiming the Commons
Definition
There are varied conceptualizations about the commons notes activist and scholar Soma Kishore Parthasarathy.
Conventionally, they are understood as natural resources intended for use by those who depend on their use. However, the concept of the commons has expanded to include the resources of knowledge, heritage, culture, virtual spaces, and even climate. It pre-dates the individual property regime and provided the basis for organization of society. Definitions given by government entities limit its scope to land and material resources.
The concept of the commons rests on the cultural practice of sharing livelihood spaces and resources as nature’s gift, for the common good, and for the sustainability of the common.
Context
Under increasing threat, nations and market forces continue to colonize, exploit and occupy humanity’s commons.
In some favourable contexts, the ‘commons’ have the potential to enable women, especially economically oppressed women, to have autonomy in how they are able to negotiate their multiple needs and aspirations.
Feminist perspective
Patriarchy is reinforced when women and other oppressed genders are denied access and control of the commons.
Therefore, a feminist economy seeks to restore the legitimate rights of communities to these common resources. This autonomy is enabling them to sustain themselves; while evolving more egalitarian systems of governance and use of such resources. A feminist economy acknowledges women’s roles and provides equal opportunities for decision-making, i.e. women as equal claimants to these resources.

Learn more about this proposition
- Reclaiming the Commons for Gender and Economic Justice: Struggles and Movements in India is an interview to scholar Soma Kishore Parthasarathy on how women in rural India are contesting this reality by proposing a shared management of common resources.
- Feminism And The Politics Of The Commons by Silvia Federici looks at the politics of the commons from a feminist standpoint shaped by the struggle against sexual discrimination and reproductive work, to clarify the conditions under which the principle of the common/s can become the foundation of an anti-capitalist program.
Part of our series of
Feminist Propositions for a Just Economy
Snippet FEA This is the story of the Nadia Echazú (FR)
Un lieu de travail n'a pas à fonctionner sur la base de la concurrence et du profit. Un lieu de travail ne devrait pas exploiter les gens au profit d’autrui. C’est pourquoi les communautés marginalisées en dehors des économies formelles construisent des modèles coopératifs alternatifs basés sur l'autonomie, la coopération, la coresponsabilité, l'autogestion et la solidarité.
Les lieux de travail et coopératives autogérés par les travailleur·euses ont toujours offert d'autres moyens de générer des opportunités d'emploi, des revenus, une sécurité sociale et des épargnes, tout en distribuant les revenus de manière plus communautaire, durable et sûre.
Mais le coopérativisme c'est bien plus qu'une opportunité d'emploi: c'est la réalisation des rêves et la construction d’économies féministes basées sur la solidarité et l'entraide. C'est la création d’un monde où nos vies, notre travail et nos communautés comptent.
Voici l'histoire de la Coopérative Textile Nadia Echazú, la première coopérative créée et dirigée par et pour les personnes travesti et trans en Argentine.
Peni Moore
Peni was a radical feminist philosopher, poet, writer, playwright and songwriter.
As the first coordinator for the Fiji Women’s Rights Movement, she left a legacy that was infused with her deep concern for women’s human rights, justice and peace. Peni’s commitment to social, economic and ecological justice and her outstanding work gained local and international respect. She was one of the first in mainstream feminist movements in Fiji to work with, and beside LGBTQI people as a real accomplice, and provided practical assistance to the early Fiji sex worker movement.
Her colleagues described her as a formidable individual and visionary leader for change. She inspired many by her creativity and courage. Her work provided platforms for people to be heard, attain new skills and forge new pathways both at the personal and community level.
Faye Macheke
Faye es una apasionada feminista panafricana, que trabaja activamente en diversos movimientos por los derechos de las mujeres, la justicia racial, los derechos de las personas migrantes y los derechos laborales, y por la justicia ambiental. Su activismo se basa en el legado de la lucha contra el apartheid en Sudáfrica y las consecuencias de la era del apartheid en Zimbabue.
En 2019, Faye se sumó a AWID como Directora de Finanzas, Operaciones y Desarrollo y dedicó sus esfuerzos a garantizar que AWID defienda los principios y valores feministas en todas sus operaciones. Aporta más de 20 años de experiencia en liderazgo y estrategias feministas y en todos los aspectos de las finanzas y el desarrollo institucional.
Faye es una comprometida integrante de la Junta de Urgent Action Fund Africa (UAF- Fondo de Acción Urgente África) y otras organizaciones por los derechos de las mujeres. Anteriormente, desempeñó funciones de Directora de Finanzas y Operaciones en Paediatric Adolescent Treatment for Africa (Tratamiento Pediátrico y Adolescente para África) y JASS - Just Associates Inc., en Sudáfrica. Asimismo, ocupó roles directivos en International Computer Driving Licence (ICDL), en África central y meridional. Posee una licenciatura en Ciencias Contables de la Universidad de Sudáfrica y forma parte del Instituto Sudafricano de Gestión Contable Empresarial.
Helen Rumbali
Snippet - WITM Start the survey 1 - AR
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الاستطلاع متاح باللغات العربية، الإنجليزية، الفرنسية، البرتغالية، الروسية والاسبانية!
Key opposition strategies and tactics
Despite their rigidity in matters of doctrine and worldview, anti-rights actors have demonstrated an openness to building new kinds of strategic alliances, to new organizing techniques, and to new forms of rhetoric. As a result, their power in international spaces has increased.
There has been a notable evolution in the strategies of ultra conservative actors operating at this level. They do not only attempt to tinker at the edges of agreements and block certain language, but to transform the framework conceptually and develop alternative standards and norms, and avenues for influence.
Strategy 1: Training of UN delegates
Ultra conservative actors work to create and sustain their relationships with State delegates through regular training opportunities - such as the yearly Global Family Policy Forum - and targeted training materials.
These regular trainings and resources systematically brief delegates on talking points and negotiating techniques to further collaboration towards anti-rights objectives in the human rights system. Delegates also receive curated compilations of ‘consensus language’ and references to pseudo-scientific or statistical information to bolster their arguments.
The consolidated transmission of these messages explains in part why State delegates who take ultra-conservative positions in international human rights debates frequently do so in contradiction with their own domestic legislation and policies.
Strategy 2: Holding international convenings
Anti-rights actors’ regional and international web of meetings help create closer links between ultra conservative Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), States and State blocs, and powerful intergovernmental bodies. The yearly international World Congress of Families is one key example.

These convenings reinforce personal connections and strategic alliances, a key element for building and sustaining movements. They facilitate transnational, trans-religious and dynamic relationship-building around shared issues and interests, which leads to a more proactive approach and more holistic sets of asks at the international policy level on the part of anti-rights actors.
Strategy 3: Placing reservations on human rights agreements
States and State blocs have historically sought to undermine international consensus or national accountability under international human rights norms through reservations to human rights agreements, threatening the universal applicability of human rights.
The Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) has received by far the most reservations, most of which are based on alleged conflict with religious law. It is well-established international human rights law that evocations of tradition, culture or religion cannot justify violations of human rights, and many reservations to CEDAW are invalid as they are “incompatible with the object and purpose” of CEDAW. Nevertheless, reference to these reservations is continually used by States to dodge their human rights responsibilities.
‘Reservations’ to UN documents and agreements that are not formal treaties - such as Human Rights Council and General Assembly resolutions - are also on the rise.
Strategy 4: Creating a parallel human rights framework
In an alarming development, regressive actors at the UN have begun to co-opt existing rights standards and campaign to develop agreed language that is deeply anti-rights.
The aim is to create and then propagate language in international human rights spaces that validates patriarchal, hierarchical, discriminatory, and culturally relativist norms.
One step towards this end is the drafting of declarative texts, such as the World Family Declaration and the San Jose Articles, that pose as soft human rights law. Sign-ons are gathered from multiple civil society, state, and institutional actors; and they are then used a basis for advocacy and lobbying.
Strategy 5: Developing alternative ‘scientific’ sources
As part of a strategic shift towards the use of non-religious discourses, anti-rights actors have significantly invested in their own ‘social science’ think tanks. Given oxygen by the growing conservative media, materials from these think tanks are then widely disseminated by conservative civil society groups. The same materials are used as the basis for advocacy at the international human rights level.
While the goals and motivation of conservative actors derive from their extreme interpretations of religion, culture, and tradition, such regressive arguments are often reinforced through studies that claim intellectual authority. A counter-discourse is thus produced through a heady mix of traditionalist doctrine and social science.
Strategy 6: Mobilizing Youth
This is one of the most effective strategies employed by the religious right and represents a major investment in the future of anti-rights organizing.
Youth recruitment and leadership development, starting at the local level with churches and campuses, are a priority for many conservative actors engaged at the international policy level.
This strategy has allowed for infiltration of youth-specific spaces at the United Nations, including at the Commission on the Status of Women, and creates a strong counterpoint to progressive youth networks and organizations.

Strategy 7: Defunding and delegitimizing human rights mechanisms
When it comes to authoritative expert mechanisms like the UN Special Procedures and Treaty Monitoring Bodies and operative bodies like the UN agencies, regressive groups realize their potential for influence is much lower than with political mechanisms[1].
In response, anti-rights groups spread the idea that UN agencies are ‘overstepping their mandate,’ that the CEDAW Committee and other Treaty Bodies have no authority to interpret their treaties, or that Special Procedures are partisan experts working outside of their mandate. Anti-rights groups have also successfully lobbied for the defunding of agencies such as the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
This invalidation of UN mechanisms gives fuel to state impunity. Governments, when under international scrutiny, can defend their action on the basis that the reviewing mechanism is itself faulty or overreaching.
Strategy 8: Organizing online
Conservative non-state actors increasingly invest in social media and other online platforms to promote their activities, campaign, and widely share information from international human rights spaces.
The Spanish organization CitizenGo, for example, markets itself as the conservative version of Change.org, spearheading petitions and letter-writing campaigns. One recent petition, opposing the establishment of a UN international day on safe abortion, gathered over 172,000 signatures.
Overarching Trends:
- Learning from the organizing strategies of feminists and other progressives.
- Replicating and adapting successful national-level tactics for the international sphere.
- Moving from an emphasis on ‘symbolic protest’ to becoming subversive system ‘insiders.’
By understanding the strategies employed by anti-rights actors, we can be more effective in countering them.
[1] The fora that are state-led, like the General Assembly, the Human Rights Council, and UN conferences like the Commission on the Status of Women and the Commission on Population and Development
Other Chapters
Snippet FEA Life expectancy of a trans and travesti (EN)

Life expectancy of a trans and travesti person in Argentina is 37 years old - the average age for the general population is 77.
Carmen de la Cruz
Carmen tuvo una larga carrera en la defensa de los derechos de las mujeres tanto en organizaciones no gubernamentales como en el sistema de las Naciones Unidas.
Dio clases en varias universidades españolas y latinoamericanas y publicó numerosos artículos e informes sobre mujeres, género y paz en países en desarrollo. Sus escritos y reflexiones críticas repercutieron en toda una generación de mujeres jóvenes.
En sus últimos años, fue responsable del Área Práctica de Género en el Centro Regional para América Latina del Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo (PNUD), desde donde apoyó iniciativas muy valiosas en favor de la igualdad de género y los derechos humanos de las mujeres.
Juhi
Juhi est passionnée de technologie, titulaire d'une licence en génie informatique de l'Université Technologique du Gujarat et d'une formation de troisième cycle en télécommunications sans fil et en gestion de projet du Humber College. Passionnée par la résolution de problèmes et aimant garder une longueur d'avance dans un paysage technologique en constante évolution, Juhi s'est retrouvée à naviguer dans divers secteurs en tant que technicienne informatique. Grâce à l'environnement stimulant de la School Board, Juhi a eu l'occasion d'appliquer ses compétences techniques dans divers contextes, relevant toujours de nouveaux défis avec enthousiasme. Au-delà du code et des circuits, Juhi aime les aventures de la vie. Explorer de nouveaux lieux et cultures constitue pour elle une bouffée d’air frais. Qu'il s'agisse de découvrir des trésors cachés de la ville, d'essayer des cuisines exotiques ou de se lancer dans des sports d'aventure palpitants, Juhi est toujours partante pour de nouvelles expériences.
Marinalva Manoel
Snippet - WITM Our objectives - RU
Задачи исследования «Где деньги?»:
1 |
Предоставить членам AWID, партнерам и донорам обновленный, мощный, основанный на фактических данных и ориентированный на конкретные действия анализ ресурсных реалий феминистских движений, а также текущего состояния экосистемы финансирования феминистских инициатив. |
2 |
Выявить и продемонстрировать возможности для увеличения и улучшения финансирования феминистских организаций, выявить ошибочные решения и препятствовать тенденциям, приводящим к нехватке финансирования и/или противоречащим гендерной справедливости и межсекторальным феминистским повесткам. |
3 |
Сформулировать феминистское видение, предложения и программы по обеспечению ресурсами. |