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#DayOfFamilies: 15 Resources for Progressive Family Advocacy

Today, May 15th, is the International Day of Families. But what do families, human rights and gender justice have to do with one another?

Established principles of international human rights law uphold the rights of all individuals within families to be free of coercion, violence and discrimination; free to found families on an equal basis; and free to become a part of diverse forms of families around the world. Yet today we stand witness to ongoing violations of these intrinsic rights across regions, and the failure of states to ensure these rights and to hold perpetrators accountable.

At the same time, conservative actors are leading the charge at the United Nations and other human rights spaces to undermine and chip away at our rights protections themselves. Ironically, many of these actors use emerging discourses around ‘the family’ to defend violations committed against family members, to bolster and justify impunity, and to restrict equal rights within and to family life.

Conservative discourses undermining rights

We are increasingly seeing the spread of a conservative discourse in human rights spaces which seeks to employ the term “family” strategically – to reserve human rights for the few instead of for all, to promote inequality, and to weaken our existing human rights protections.

Regressive actors are collaborating across borders and religions to attack human rights standards with appeals to a narrow and discriminatory conception of ‘the family’ and ‘family values,’ including the “Protection of the Family” resolutions at the United Nations.

Equality in family laws

From country to country, personal status or family laws fail to recognize the diversity of families, and discriminate against women and restrict their rights to family life and other fundamental freedoms.

Not only do these laws continue to grant unequal rights to custody; provide cover for coercion, abuse and sexual violence; and delimit women’s access to money – states continue to attempt to back out of their human rights commitments to change these laws and challenge discriminatory gender stereotypes by reference to national sovereignty, tradition, religion and culture.

Families are diverse

Contrary to the claims of anti-rights actors, and as the human rights framework has recognized time and again, families are diverse and take many different forms around the world. Family has always evolved and today manifests itself in many forms such as nuclear families, single parent families, cross-generational families, families with same-sex parents, childless families, and child-headed families.

The following resources exist to support progressive advocacy on the family which can counteract oppressive anti-rights discourses around family, push the recognition of the diversity of family, and promote equal rights and justice within families.

Please share these with your networks, let us know of your key resources, and tweet using the hashtag #DayOfFamilies

1. Reclaiming Family Values: How to address family in social justice activism

A guide for civil society and activists, especially focussed on Europe. It explains what family equality is, and offers ten strategies to include family in our work through planning, funding, research, communication and messaging, lobbying and advocacy, cross-movement alliances, media work, litigation, working with faith, and engaging with opponents to equality.

2. Key Opposition Discourses

This chapter of the Observatory on the Universality of Rights (OURs) Trends Report 2017 lays out some key discourses employed by anti-rights actors engaging at the UN, including the “Protection of the Family” agenda that functions as a potent umbrella concept housing multiple patriarchal and anti-rights positions

3. Lobbying for Faith and Family

This study from NORAD focuses on religiously-motivated lobbying groups at the UN that form powerful alliances across religious divides – Catholics and Mormons; Christians and Muslims; Russian Orthodox and American fundamentalists – finding common ground in “traditional values” and “familly” agendas.

4. Joint Regional Declarations on Family and Traditional Values

The Silom Manifesto, Johannesburg Declaration, and São Leopoldo Declaration, are regional declarations that were drafted through a series of dialogues between advocates, activists, theologians and researchers that were coordinated by GIN-SSOGIE. The declarations reclaim and affirm the diversity of natural families in Asia, Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean respectively.

5. Why Muslim Family Law Reform? Why Now?

As part of Musawah’s Campaign for Justice in Muslim Family Laws, this policy brief distills the 10 strongest arguments to make the case for the reform of Muslim Family Laws, especially since resistance to reform is based on religious justifications.

6. Protection of the Family – A Human Rights Response

This brief from the Sexual Rights Initiative and the Association for Women’s Rights in Development lays out key human rights standards relating to the rights of individuals within family contexts in response to the dangerous “Protection of the Family” agenda which conflicts with established principles of international human rights law, including universality and indivisibility.

7. “Protection of the Family”- What it means for human rights

This interview with Neha Sood (then of the Sexual Rights Initiative) clearly lays out the basics about the “Protection of the Family” resolutions and how they are part of a push to erode the universality of rights.

8. When “Family” is Weaponized Against LGBTQI People at the United Nations

This fact-sheet from GIN-SSOGIE details the ways in which the religious right have used concepts relating to the family to push against the rights of LGBTQI people, and sets out a progressive response based on anchoring “Family” within lived realities and inclusive faith-based Messaging, further elaborated in the accompanying “Faith Focus” fact-sheet.

9. Thematic Report on Discrimination in Family and Cultural Life

In this report, the UN Working Group on discrimination against women in law and in practice examines discrimination against women and girls in cultural and family life. Reaffirming equality between the sexes and family diversity, the report states the necessity of applying the principle of equality in all forms of family law, in secular family law systems, State-enforced religious family law systems and plural systems.

10. CEDAW and Muslim Family Laws – In Search of Common Ground

This report from Musawah examines States parties’ justifications for their failure to implement CEDAW with regard to family laws and practices that discriminate against Muslim women. Musawah present responses based on their holistic Framework for Action and give recommendations to the CEDAW Committee for a deeper engagement on the connections between Muslim family laws and practices and international human rights standards.

11. Report on Protection of the family – contribution of the family to the realization of the right to an adequate standard of living for its members

This report from OHCHR lays out the relevant provisions of human rights law with regard to the family, including the right to found a family, the right to equality in the family, and the right not to be subject to violence or abuse within the family

12. Love is a family value: Supporting all families and family members

This video from a special event of the UN LGBT Core Group from 2014 documents hundreds of LGBT activists and UN diplomats gathering to celebrate Human Rights Day at the UN with a particular focus on the role of families and LGBT people

13. How the far right is weaponizing “the family”

This article presents an insider view of the World Congress of Families 2019, where a global ultra-conservative lobby came together under the seemingly innocuous ‘pro-family’ banner to strengthen their resistance to sexual and reproductive rights, the rights of women and LGBTQI people, and the rights of migrants.

14. Strong concerns on the resolution on the Protection of the Family (HRC35)

This statement from 13 civil society organizations, including feminist organizations and those working on the rights of older persons, voices concern around the 2017 resolution protection of the family. It rejects the resolution’s its failure to reflect research that the family is the primary site of violence against older persons, its narrow definition of family, and its aim to subvert the universality of international human rights.

15. International Family Equality Day

International Family Equality Day (IFED) is a global campaign to celebrate the diversity of families annually on May 3rd. IFED 2020 focused on Family Diversity in Education, calling for integration of family diversity in the education system and curricula. The campaign materials include a collection of affirming educational materials.

States urged to respect, protect, and fulfill the SRHR of adolescents and youth

Through the Vienna Declaration and numerous regional and international commitments, member states agreed to respect, protect, and fulfill the human rights of adolescents and young people, including their rights to life, bodily autonomy, education including comprehensive sexuality education, survival, and development.

However, many member states are hesitant to recognise the role of adolescents and young people’s sexuality beyond links to reproduction. Human rights violations affecting adolescents and youth must be located within the context of multiple and intersecting oppressions. Millions of them, especially girls, are coerced into unwanted sex or marriage,[1], putting them at risk of unwanted or early pregnancies, unsafe abortions, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) including HIV, and life-threatening childbirth.[2]

Indeed, pregnancy and childbirth-related complications are the leading cause of death among adolescent girls aged 15-19 years worldwide.[3] Across the globe, restrictive laws and third party authorization and parental consent requirements continue to hinder adolescents and young people’s full realisation of their sexual and reproductive rights. With the largest global youth population ever, millions of today’s young people will be failed if the human rights violations affecting us are not effectively addressed and redressed.

We urge the Human Rights Council to recognise and reaffirm the sexual and reproductive health and rights of all adolescents and young people through its resolutions, dialogues, debates, and UPRs. Further, we urge member states to respect, protect, and fulfill the sexual and reproductive health and rights of all adolescents and young people, with particular attention to those facing multiple and intersecting forms of oppression, including through full recognition of their legal capacity to access comprehensive sexuality education and sexual and reproductive health services autonomously. Furthermore, states should put in place effective measures to prevent and eliminate violations of adolescent girls’ sexual and reproductive rights, including actions aiming to control girls’ sexuality, harmful practices, and coerced or denied medical interventions, as well as to effectively combat widespread impunity and provide adolescents and youth, in particular girls, with effective reparations, access to justice and redress, and guarantees of non-repetition in cases of violation and denial of their bodily rights.

This statement was presented at the 41st session of the Human Rights Council by the Asian-Pacific Resource & Research Centre for Women (ARROW) on behalf a number of organizations, July 8th 2019.

[1] UNICEF. (2018). Child Marriage: Latest Trends and Future Prospects.

[2]Abdul Cader, A. (2017). Ending Child, Early, and Forced Marriage: SRHR as Central to the Solution.

Kuala Lumpur: Asian-Pacific Resource & Research Centre for Women (ARROW).

[3] WHO. (2018). Adolescents: health risks and solutions.

#DayOfFamilies: 14 Resources for Progressive Family Advocacy

Today, May 15th, is the International Day of Families. But what do families, human rights and gender justice have to do with one another?

Yet today we stand witness to ongoing violations of these intrinsic rights across regions – including intimate partner violence and child abuse, harmful practices, stigmatization, and unequal family laws – and the failure of states to ensure these rights and to hold perpetrators accountable.

And at the same time, conservative actors are leading the charge at the United Nations and other human rights spaces to undermine and chip away at our rights protections themselves. Ironically, many of these actors use emerging discourses around ‘the family’ to defend violations committed against family members, to bolster and justify impunity, and to restrict equal rights within and to family life.

Conservative discourses undermining rights

We are increasingly seeing the spread of a conservative discourse in human rights spaces which seeks to employ the term “family” strategically – to reserve human rights for the few instead of for all, to promote inequality and to weaken our existing human rights protections.

Equality in family laws

Families are diverse

Contrary to the claims of anti-rights actors, and as the human rights framework has recognized time and time again, families are diverse and take many different forms around the world. Family has always evolved and today manifests itself in many forms such as the nuclear family, single parent family, cross-generational family, same-sex (parents) family, childless family, and child-headed family.

Please share these with your networks, let us know of your key resources, and tweet using the hashtag #DayOfFamilies

1. Reclaiming Family Values: How to address family in social justice activism

2. Key Opposition Discourses

3. Lobbying for Faith and Family

4. Johannesburg Declaration

This Declaration is part of a series of joint declarations written by advocates, activists, theologians and researchers from around the world, and coordinated by GIN-SSOGIE, which reclaims and affirms the diversity of natural families in Africa, including the families of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) people, and promotes and defend these families locally, regionally and internationally.

5. Silom Manifesto

In this Manifesto, coordinated by GIN-SSOGIE, Asia-based and -focused activists and advocates reclaim and affirm the diversity of families in Asia, which include the families of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) people.

6. Protection of the Family – A Human Rights Response

7. “Protection of the Family”- What it means for human rights

This interview with Neha Sood (then of the Sexual Rights Iniaitive) clearly lays out the basics about the “Protection of the Family” resolutions and how they are part of a push to erode the universality of rights.

8. When “Family” is Weaponized Against LGBTQI People at the United Nations

9. Thematic Report on Discrimination in Family and Cultural Life

In this report, the Working Group examines discrimination against women and girls in cultural and family life. Reaffirming equality between the sexes and family diversity, the report states the necessity of applying is necessary to apply the principle of equality in all forms of family law, in secular family law systems, State-enforced religious family law systems and plural systems.

10. CEDAW and Muslim Family Laws – In Search of Common Ground

This report from Musawah examines States parties’ justifications for their failure to implement CEDAW with regard to family laws and pratices that discriminate against Muslim women. Musawah present responses based on their holistic Framework for Action and give recommendations to the CEDAW Committee for a deeper engagement on the connections between Muslim family laws and practices and international human rights standards.

11. Report on Protection of the family – contribution of the family to the realization of the right to an adequate standard of living for its members

This report from OHCHR lays out the relevant provisions of human rights law with regard to the family, including the right to found a family, Right to equality in the family, and the right not to be subject to violence or abuse within the family

12. Love is a family value: Supporting all families and family members

A video from a special event of the UN LGBT Core Group from 2014 where hundreds of LGBT activists and UN diplomats gathered to celebrate Human Rights Day at the UN with a particular focus on the role of families and LGBT people

13. How the far right is weaponising “the family”

This article presents an insider view of the World Congress of Families 2019, where a globally ultra-conservative lobby came together under the seemingly innocuous ‘pro-family’ banner to strengthen their resistance to sexual and reproductive rights,the rights of women and LGBTQI people, and the rights of migrants.

14. Strong concerns on the resolution on the Protection of the Family (HRC35)

Statement on the independence of the African Commission and the holding of the 64th ordinary session of the African commission

By holding its 64th session in Sharm El Sheik, Egypt, the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights (ACHPR) demonstrates again its lack of commitment to the protection and the promotion of human rights in Africa.

Human rights organisations signatories to this statement made a decision to boycott the NGO Forum and the 64^thsession of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) opening on 24 April 2019 in Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt. Egypt has taken a leadership role in dismantling the African human rights system through its regressive participation in the passing of the decision 1015 by the Executive Council of the African Union. By accepting the invitation of Egypt to host its ordinary session, the ACHPR is contributing to white-washing the human rights abuses that the Egyptian State is perpetrating and its current attacks on regional accountability institutions, human rights defenders, and the right of women and marginalised people to bodily autonomy.

As civil society organisations that have been working at the African commission for over 14 years, we refuse to follow suit and bow to State tyranny especially at the hands of a State that has a horrendous track record of serious human rights violations – including arbitrary executions – and which has rejected calls from the same African Commission to stop the gross violations that the current regime has committed against any dissenting voice, including journalists, lawyers, human rights defenders, women’s rights activists and sexual and gender diverse communities.

We are concerned by the lack of firm and clear leadership from the NGO Forum in preserving a meaningful space for engagement, and concerned about the safety of civil society delegates who have travelled to Egypt and who are under state surveillance and therefore at a heightened risk of arrest as we issue this statement.

In October 2018, the NGO Forum refusal in Banjul to adopt and publish a joint resolution that was supported by civil society ahead of the 63^rd session, which explicitly requested the ACHPR to reject the invitation by Egypt to host the 64^thsession in Egypt, plays into the hands of States behind the dismantling of the ACHPR project, and facilitates the dissolution of the only remaining regional accountability system on the continent. In doing so, the NGO forum indirectly participates in the erosion of the African human rights system and weakens the ACHPR.

The acceptance of Egypt’s invitation to host this session further serves as a demonstration that the ACHPR has surrendered its independence to African States following Decision 1015 of the Executive Council. The NGO Forum further failed to honour a proposal put forward by Civil society organisations that met on 23October 2018 in Banjul, to hold a “Peoples’ Commission” as an alternative to Egypt’s hosting of the African Commision and adopt appropriate resolutions. This is a betrayal of the peoples of Africa and the constituents represented through the NGO Forum.

We are disappointed that the NGO Forum chose to be a follower of tyranny and the oppressors of African peoples in failing to speak truth to power and to uphold the demands and resolution of more than 100 civil society organisations that met and deliberated on the threats to the independence of the African Commission on 23^rd October 2018 in Banjul. By proposing an alternative venue to deliberate as civil society and citizens of this continent, our message was loud and clear: that peoples, activists, human rights defenders and others on the continent cannot bow to the pressure of the Executive Council and States exporting dictatorship, oppression, and suppression of civil society voices, amongst which Egypt plays a leading role. That is not the Africa we want.

Our decision to boycott the 64^th session and the preceding NGO Forum is not in any way an expression of lack of solidarity with Egyptian civil society organisations that have been operating under extreme state pressure and persecution. It is a gesture of empathy and support to survivors of the suppression of liberties and fundamental freedoms the Egyptian State has adopted as policy in the name of security and anti-terrorism.

We stand in solidarity with victims, survivors and all those who have been forced to flee the country due to their human rights activism and their dissenting voice, which are ruthlessly suppressed by the Egyptian government.

We therefore:

1. Demand that African states that believe in human and peoples’ rights as enshrined in the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (the Charter) speak out and preserve the independence of the African Commission, the primary organ tasked with holding states accountable and for advancement of human and peoples’ rights on our continent;
2. Request that the African Commission work closely with the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the Committee on the Rights and the Welfare of the Child to develop a joint response to Decision 1015 of the Executive council; Affirming the independence, autonomy and complementarity of various organs of the African human rights system;
3. Demand that the NGO Forum organise elections and change leadership to ensure an inclusive, young and innovative governance structure that listens to and upholds all CSOs’ voices and advances a peoples’ focused agenda;
4. Urge civil society representatives who travelled to Egypt to exert caution in their movements, internet searches, and social media use, given the ruthlessness of the hosting country and the realisation that neither the NGO Forum nor the African Commission can guarantee their safety and security;
5. Call on sister organisations that boycotted the 64^th session and the preceding NGO Forum to endorse this statement and engage various stakeholders for action to address the increasing threats against the African human rights system.
6. Call upon partners technically and financially supporting the African Union to request guarantees that such support is not used to dismantle the African human rights accountability system by undermining the independence of the African Commission.

Issued by:

African Men for Sexual Health and Rights (AMSHeR)

& Coalition of African Lesbians (CAL)

Women human rights defenders must be protected, say UN experts

GENEVA (28 November 2018) – States must live up to their commitments to protect women human rights defenders, who are increasingly under attack and inadequately protected, a group of UN human rights experts* said. They issued the following joint statement to mark International Women Human Rights Defenders Day on 29 November:

“The current global context of unchecked authoritarianism as well as the rise of populism, of corporate power and of fundamentalist groups are contributing towards closing the space for civil society. This is being done through the enactment of laws and practices that effectively impede human rights work, including the misapplication of certain laws such as counter-terrorism and public assembly laws. In this context, women human rights defenders face additional barriers of economic and structural discrimination and unique challenges driven by deep-rooted discrimination against women and stereotypes entrenched in patriarchal societies related to gender and sexuality.

In addition to the risks of threats, attacks and violence faced by all human rights defenders, women human rights defenders are exposed to specific risks such as sexual violence, defamation, intimidation, including against their family members, in order to deter them from continuing their valuable work. In 2017, Front Line Defenders recorded the killings of 44 women human rights defenders, an increase from 40 in 2016 and 30 in 2015.

Those working on rights contested by fundamentalist groups such as women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights and those denouncing the actions of extractive industries and businesses that often leads to the violation of the rights of specific groups, i.e. indigenous people, racial and ethnic minorities, and rural and other marginalised communities, become at heightened risk of attacks and violence.

Women human rights defenders also face particular threats in conflict and post-conflict situations. Situations of armed conflict, and the subsequent break down of the rule of law, create a dangerous environment for women and girls. Women human rights defenders are pivotal in promoting sustainable peace, yet they are constantly excluded from peace processes and politics, often criminalised, and they experience gender-based violence, which hampers their participation in decision-making processes.

Women human rights defenders often face abuses perpetrated by non-State actors including members of their own family, community and faith-based groups, non-State armed groups, private security agencies, corporations, organised crime.

Women human rights defenders make essential contributions to the effective promotion, protection and realization of international human rights law and play an important role in raising awareness and mobilizing civil society in identifying human rights violations and in contributing to the development of genuine solutions that incorporate a gender perspective.

Women human rights defenders lead movements that have swept the globe calling for gender equality and an end to gender-based violence against women. They have flooded the streets, the airwaves, and the internet with their energy and their testimonials, bringing to light truths that are too often buried in darkness.

They are making immeasurable contributions to the advancement of human rights all over the world. They are raising their voices, frequently at great personal risk, to stand up for human rights and justice for all. Often these women are at the forefront of challenging social and cultural norms that limit women’s human rights. They take stands that are necessary to progress but unpopular, taking on the most powerful and providing support for the most vulnerable.

As United Nations human rights experts, we condemn all attacks on women human rights defenders. We are particularly concerned regarding those who have suffered reprisals for their efforts to work with the United Nations and regional bodies. Participation in the work of the international human rights system is in itself a right and must never be met with intimidation or attacks.”

On this day of celebration of the crucial work of women human rights defenders, we call on States to fulfil their commitment to enable that work, proclaimed almost 20 years ago in the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders and reaffirmed five years ago in General Assembly resolution 68/181 on protecting women human rights defenders. In order to put an end to all attacks on women human rights defenders, we call for:

(i) public recognition, by the highest State authorities, of the importance and legitimacy of the work of women human rights defenders, and a commitment that no violence or threats against them will be tolerated;

(ii) repeal of any State legislation or elimination of any measures intended to penalize or obstruct the work of defenders;

(iii) strengthening of State institutions responsible for safeguarding the work of defenders;

(iv) investigating and punishing any form of violence or threat against defenders, including in relation to reprisals for engaging with the United Nations System, and;

(v) due diligence of States in protecting women human rights defenders that are threatened by non-state actors.

But most of all, we express our gratitude and admiration for the actions of these women, for their courage, strength, dedication, effectiveness and relentless fight for human rights.

“They are coming for your children” – the rise of CitizenGo

The right-wing campaigning platform CitizenGo has coordinated mass online petitions – and offline actions. Its reach is growing, alarming human rights advocates.

This month, tourists and beachgoers in Spain will be treated to the sight of a bright orange plane, flying overhead, declaring its opposition to a proposed law against discrimination based on sexual orientation. Among other things, the bill would see businesses and organisations fined for non-compliance. It has been backed by the left-wing Podemos party and activists for LGBT rights.

The controversial stunt is the latest offline action from CitizenGo, an online hub for conservative campaigners that launched in 2010. It is known for coordinating large-scale e-petitions, including against transgender rights and abortion, and has been described as the right-wing counterpart to sites like MoveOn.org and Change.org.

At the US thinktank Political Research Associates, LGBT and gender researcher Cole Parke said the growth of groups like CitizenGo contrasts with the beliefs of some “progressive activists…that the opposition is an aging and increasingly irrelevant minority”. Parke said: “the right’s online savviness (and expanding political power) suggests that this is not at all the case”.

“They have self-consciously modelled themselves on MoveOn.org, Change.org or other petition sites,” activist and human rights lawyer Naureen Shameem told me. She works for the Association of Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) and is monitoring the backlash against sexual and reproductive rights, and growing “anti-rights” activism at the UN in particular.

CitizenGo has been on AWID’s radar for some time, as Arsuaga also sits on the board of a group called the World Congress of Families which organises large-scale regional and international conferences to create alliances between “pro-family” groups.

Shameem says these organisations “often speak and try to appropriate the language of human rights to their own ends.” She adds: “the focus of what they do is power orientated. A manipulation of religious arguments to increase power and undermine the universality of rights”

Increasingly conservative and religious right groups are appealing to what they call “parental rights” in their attempts to strengthen their “hierarchical and traditional concept of the family,” according to a report written by Shameem and published earlier this year by the new Observatory on the Universality of Rights.

In numerous countries CitizenGo has linked up with other like-minded organisations including grassroots and community-level “pro-family” groups. “They have become much more active at a regional level,” adds Shameem.

Read the full text from openDemocracy.

Dominican Republic: UN rights experts urge legislators to back President Medina’s stand on abortion

GENEVA (25 January 2017) – A group of United Nations human rights experts* today urged all Dominican Republic legislators to protect women and girls’ rights to sexual and reproductive health in the country by supporting President Danilo Medina’s position against regressive amendments of the Penal Code regarding abortion.

The experts’ call comes as the Commission appointed to examine the presidential observations to the amendments proposed by Congress prepares to issue its report, which the Senate will subsequently vote on. On 19 December 2016 President Danilo Medina vetoed the new version of the Criminal Code representing a grave regression for women’s right to health.

“We sincerely hope that the Dominican Congress will finally seize this historical moment to mark its commitment towards eliminating gender discrimination in its legislation and to advance women’s and adolescents’ sexual and reproductive rights, in accordance with their international human rights obligations,” they stated.

Under the Congress proposed amendment, terminating a pregnancy would only be available in one case: when there is a risk for the life of the pregnant woman or girl. However, the 2014 version of the text partially decriminalized the access to abortion services under three circumstances, including when the life of a pregnant women or girl was at risk, when the foetus could not survive outside the womb and when the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest.

“Denying women and girls’ access to safe abortion services in cases of health reasons, serious foetal impairment and pregnancy resulting from rape and incest, will certainly cause excessive and long-lasting physical and psychological suffering to many women,” the experts stressed.

“Reducing access to such health services violates women’s and girls’ right to be protected against gender-based discrimination and may amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment,” they said.

The UN experts also warned that restrictive abortion laws exacerbate the risks to the health and safety of the affected women, driving them to undergo sometimes desperate life-threating solutions. “It has been demonstrated that countries with easy access to information and to modern methods of contraception and where abortion is legal, have the lowest rates of abortion,” they noted.

The human rights experts pointed out that this is the last chance, under the current Government, for the situation of women’s sexual and reproductive rights to be improved since President Medina had rejected a similar reform proposed in 2014.

“Should President Medina’s observations not be adopted, this would be a tragedy for women in the Dominican Republic and a deplorable example for the region”, the experts concluded.

The President’s observations could only be circumvented if both chambers of the Congress (Chamber of Deputies and Senate) adopt the initial amendments proposed with a majority of two-thirds of the members.

Via OHCHR

Same-sex marriage plebiscite bill blocked by Australian Senate

The Federal Government’s bid to hold a plebiscite on whether to legalise same-sex marriage has been defeated in the Senate.

Key points:

Public vote on same-sex marriage rejected by Parliament
Labor, Greens say plebiscite would have sparked hatred towards LGBTI community
Nationals MP says Coalition will not have conscience vote on issue

The proposal was voted down on Monday night in the Upper House 33 votes to 29.

The Attorney-General George Brandis had warned a defeat would result in delaying same-sex marriage in Australia for years to come.

But the Federal Opposition says the plebiscite would have resulted in harmful debate against the gay and lesbian community and want a direct vote in Parliament, instead.

Read the full story from ABC

UN Committee Finds Ireland’s Abortion Laws are Cruel, Inhumane and Degrading

6/9/2016 – (Center for Reproductive Rights) Ireland’s abortion laws subjected a woman to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, according to a landmark decision from the United Nations Human Rights Committee. This ground-breaking ruling marks the first time that, in response to an individual complaint, an international human rights court or committee has recognized that by criminalizing abortion a state has violated a woman’s human rights.

The U.N. committee ruled in favor of Amanda Mellet, who was denied access to an abortion in Ireland in 2011 after learning her pregnancy involved a fatal fetal impairment and found the prospect of continuing her pregnancy unbearable. The committee held that the Irish government must take measures to redress the harm Ms. Mellet suffered and reform its laws to ensure other women do not continue to face similar violations, as well as i instructs the government to guarantee effective, timely and accessible procedures for abortion in Ireland.

In November 2013, the Center for Reproductive Rights filed a complaint on behalf of Amanda Mellet before the United Nations Human Rights Committee, arguing that Ireland’s restrictive abortion laws violated her basic human rights by subjecting her to severe mental suffering and anguish.

Said Leah Hoctor, regional director for Europe at the Center for Reproductive Rights:

“Women’s health and wellbeing are put at risk when laws deny them access to abortion services.

“Today’s landmark decision from the U.N. Human Rights Committee sends the clear message that Ireland’s abortion laws are cruel and inhumane, and violate women’s human rights.

“The Irish government can no longer ignore its responsibility to ensure women’s health. Ireland must now move swiftly to provide Amanda Mellet the justice she deserves and reform its abortion laws.”

In 2011, Amanda Mellet learned during the course of her pregnancy that the fetus had a fatal fetal impairment. She knew she could not continue with the pregnancy and asked her doctors for an abortion. However because Ireland outlaws abortion in almost all circumstances, she was forced to travel to the United Kingdom to end the pregnancy.

In its decision, the U.N. Human Rights Committee affirms that outlawing women’s access to abortion services can cause severe suffering and undermines their personal integrity and autonomy, which results in acute violations of their human rights.

The U.N. committee unanimously held that prohibiting Ms. Mellet from accessing abortion services in Ireland violated her right to be free from cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, as well as her right to privacy. The U.N. committee also determined that Ireland’s failure to provide services that Ms. Mellet required constituted discrimination.

###

Background:

Ireland’s abortion laws are among the most restrictive in the world. Abortion is permitted only when there is a risk to the life of a pregnant woman. In every other circumstance abortion is a serious crime. Since 1983, Article 40.3.3 of the Irish Constitution has placed “the right to life of the unborn” on an equal footing with the right to life of pregnant women. Because of Ireland’s restrictive abortion laws, every year approximately 4,000 pregnant women travel to access abortion services in a foreign country.

The U.N. Human Rights Committee is an independent expert body that oversees states’ compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It is charged with a dual mandate in that regard. First, to conduct periodic reviews of state reports on implementation of the Covenant and to issue ‘concluding observations’ on those reports. Second, under the First Optional Protocol to the Covenant, it is mandated to receive individual complaints from alleged victims of violations, to adjudicate the matter and issue its views as to whether a violation occurred. Amanda Mellet’s complaint was submitted in accordance with the procedure under the First Optional Protocol.

Rights Spotlight: IDAHOT

Yesterday and today – people around the world continue to be denied their basic and fundamental human rights, targeted on the basis of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity and expression. And not only do violence, criminalization, discrimination, and impunity remain widespread, anti-rights actors frequently justify them at the national and international level in the name of culture, religion and tradition.

Over 70 countries continue to criminalize consensual same-sex relationships, and many people who are non-conforming in terms of their gender identity and expression and sexual orientation, including LGBTIQ people, undergo torture and ill-treatment in everyday life, in custody, and in clinics and hospitals. Across contexts, the law is employed to punish individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation and gender identity and to restrict rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly. Still today, region across region, entrenched discriminatory attitudes thrive in legal and policy vacuums and hate-motivated violence blights and ends the lives of many.

Yet states are legally bound by international human rights law to respect, protect and fulfil the human rights of all persons, no matter their gender identity and expression and sexual orientation.

Human rights are for each and every one of us. To reserve rights for the powerful in society and to withhold them from the marginalized makes a mockery of our human rights system and of state obligations to their citizens, and to deny any group or individual their essential rights is nothing less than to try to define them as less than human.

Join OURs today in celebrating the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia (IDAHOT) and stand in solidarity with activists and individuals worldwide. Let us call for all states to uphold the universality of rights for everyone, everywhere – equally and without discrimination.

What is OURs?

OURs aims to monitor, analyze, and share information on anti-rights initiatives threatening our human rights systems. Our goal is to strengthen the work of activists facing direct challenges to rights, especially rights related to gender and sexuality.

Resources and further information

This IDAHOT, OURs highlights a selection of resources for activists working on rights related to sexual orientation and gender identity and expression worldwide.

Please share these with your networks, let us know of your key resources, and tweet using the hashtags #RightsAreUniversal and #IDAHOT

Resources: