C-Fam Testifies Before House Sub-Committee

By | August 2, 2024

C-Fam’s Stefano Gennarini J.D. testified before the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee

WASHINGTON D.C., August 2 (C-Fam) C-Fam’s Stefano Gennarini J.D. testified before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee on the question of “gender apartheid.” We are running his statement in full.

Chairman Smith, Chairman McGovern, and honorable members, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. C-Fam commends the co-chairmen of the Tom Lantos Commission and their staff for bringing our attention to the shocking and systematic violations of the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan. We join our colleagues in calling on the U.S. government to make use of all available tools to hold those responsible to account and to bring victims the relief they need.

My testimony will address the concept of “gender” in the context of discussions of a new international treaty on crimes against humanity currently being discussed in the General Assembly’s sixth committee, and which is being promoted as a response to the outrageous abuses committed by the Taliban government.

Because of the seriousness of this topic, and the gravity of labelling anyone hostis humani generis (enemy of the human race) I want to urge a strong note of caution against importing the notion of “gender” as a social construct, sometimes referred to as gender ideology, into the crimes against humanity framework. This pertains to both the established category of crime against humanity known as “gender-based persecution” enshrined in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in 1998 and the newly proposed category of “gender apartheid.”

When the Nuremberg trials were convened, the concept of crimes against humanity—which was then considered novel and controversial—became essential to bring justice to the victims of the Nazi regime and to hold perpetrators accountable. The basic tenet of the crimes against humanity framework is that there are certain crimes that are so egregious and inhumane as to be always and self-evidently criminal, so that anyone committing such crimes is deserving of punishment, even when the perpetrators act with the backing of the law or under military orders.

While the gross violations of human rights perpetrated against women and girls in Afghanistan can indeed rise to the level of a crime against humanity, adopting the concept of “gender” as a social construct in the crimes against humanity framework presents serious legal challenges that remain unanswered.

The concept of gender opens crimes against humanity to novel and dangerous interpretations, including the weaponization of international criminal law against opponents of gender ideology. As a result, anyone who believes that there are real differences between men and women based in biology could be labelled an enemy of humanity and an international criminal.

Those calling for a broad definition of the crime of “gender apartheid” are transparent about their intent to bring about a broader vision of “gender justice” that goes beyond internationally recognized human rights through an open definition of gender.

The Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC prosecutor) has already adopted a definition of gender as a “social construct” that “varies within societies and from society to society and can change over time” in a policy paper for the purpose of investigating and prosecuting the crime of gender persecution.

Under that policy officials, politicians, religious leaders, and other public figures who do not agree with policies based on gender ideology could be accused of gender persecution. In a similar way, they could be accused of gender apartheid for their contribution to legal regimes that are deemed to institutionalize domination by one gender group over another.

This puts a target on religious people around the world who believe in the complementarity of the sexes, including Catholics, Christians of all stripes, Muslims and Hindus. Indeed, the charge of gender apartheid has been hurled against the Catholic Church because it only allows men to be ordained.

Any legal measures that deny or limit the realization of gender ideology in schools, family law, religious space, and society more broadly, could rise to the level of a crime against humanity, including restrictions on transgender identity change and sports policies, women’s only spaces, protections for parental rights and the conscience of health workers and even restrictions on access to transgender hormone therapy and surgeries for minors.

Using international criminal law to crack down on critics of gender ideology is not as far-fetched as it may seem. It is fully in line with the ongoing campaign by Western countries— and I am sad to report, also the U.S. State Department—to silence what they call “anti-rights groups.” This Orwellian label has been applied to my organization, C-Fam, as well as other U.S.-based organizations by UN mandates and organizations funded by the European Union and powerful foundations to silence and isolate views they don’t agree with.

Adopting gender ideology in the crimes against humanity framework would undermine the goal of prosecuting the most heinous crimes and divert energy and resources to social engineering and even the totalitarian imposition of gender ideology.

Gender ideology is first and foremost a theoretical and analytical construct. It is designed for social studies and social engineering. The inevitable effect of introducing gender ideology in the crimes against humanity framework is to call into question every aspect of social, political, and economic life as a potential crime against humanity.

This is far from the original motivation for establishing a framework to prosecute crimes against humanity in the first place. It is fundamentally at odds with the principle that crimes against humanity must be self-evident and egregious.

It is understandable that well-intentioned individuals and organizations would want to enhance protections for women and girls through the concept of gender apartheid, after all it seems to be a powerful rhetorical tool. However, the confusion and indeterminacy that would result in international criminal law from such a doctrine make it necessary to carefully review such proposals before Congress can lend them support.

Our government and our international partners need to work on protecting the rights of women and girls. They must not use the crimes against humanity framework to impose extreme and fringe views about gender and society that have nothing to do with protecting women and girls.

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