Joint Statement: Discussion of “protection of the family” at Human Rights Council must reflect diversity and focus on human rights

This joint statement demands that the discussion of the ‘protection of the family’ at the Human Rights Council in October 2014 must reflect diversity and focus on human rights.

According to the  statement, “our organizations, representing a wide range of civil society from all regions of the world, urge the UN Human Rights Council to ensure the Panel discussion entitled ‘protection of the family’ scheduled to take place in September reflects the diversity of family forms and includes a focus on the promotion and protection of human rights of individuals within the family unit.

The decision to hold the Panel came in a resolution passed on 26 June 2014, as a result of the deeply flawed “protection of the family” initiative led by Egypt and other States[i] at the UN Human Rights Council.

The manner in which the initiative has been pursued gives rise to concern that some States will seek to exploit it as a vehicle for promoting a narrow, exclusionary and patriarchal concept of “the family” that denies equal protection to the human rights of individuals who belong to the various and diverse forms of family that exist across the globe.