C-Fam Statement to UN: Protect the Family

By Stefano Gennarini, J.D. | 2014

NEW YORK, August 29 (C-Fam) After decades of shunning the family, something may be about to change in the halls of the UN.

John Paul II once declared, “the future of humanity passes through the family.” The Universal Declaration of Human Rights says the family is the “natural and fundamental unit of society.” But at the UN you would be hard pressed to find any evidence of this.

The family is rarely addressed at the UN. The only time the family gets attention is when families are told to have fewer children—especially if they are African. Sadly, the problem isn’t only about an imbalance in the focus of UN policies. It is systemic.

A lone UN bureaucrat buried at UN headquarters deals with family matters, while thousands scuttle around the globe declaring children “unwanted” and promoting policies that destabilize families. But there is a faint air of hope that things may eventually change.

The Human Rights Council in Geneva agreed to hold an event to discuss protecting the family. C-Fam, publisher of the Friday Fax, submitted a statement for the September 15 panel urging countries to keep the family on the UN agenda.

“States have a compelling moral and social interest in the protection and promotion of the family,” wrote C-Fam. “Without the family societies cannot exist, let alone develop.”

“Children are especially affected by the family,” the statement explains. “Research shows how children do best when they are raised by their biological parents in a stable family relationship.”

C-Fam notes that international law recognizes the union of a man and a woman in marriage is the family’s foundation, and “laws that protect marriage are essential for the protection of the family.” With regards to relationships between persons of the same-sex, the statement says countries “have no obligation or interest in incentivizing relationships other than marriage between a man and a woman.”

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the International Year of the Family. The 1994 UN observance was overshadowed by a massive UN conference on population that rebranded population control as sexual and reproductive health and committed countries to spend billions of dollars on reducing fertility.

The 47 member Human Rights Council has adopted dozens of resolutions since it was instituted in 2006. But it has not broached the subject of the family until now. This year the family is getting some much-needed attention.

The resolution adopted in June calls for an evaluation of how countries are living up to international obligations to protect the family. It was sponsored by Russia, China, 54 African countries, Indonesia, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Qatar, Jordan, Lebanon, Bahrain, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and El Salvador.

Consensus on the importance of the family excludes the United States and European Union countries who fought the resolution tooth and nail until the moment it was adopted. The current U.S. administration is unhappy with the longstanding UN definition of the family because it does not contemplate same-sex couples.

These countries went further, and criticized the resolution on the basis that only individuals possess human rights, and not the family collectively.

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