UN Push to Rethink the Meaning of Family

Image retrieved via UN Web TV. Event name: “Love and Inclusion are Family Values: Protecting All Families and Individuals”

🗞 UN Event Takes Aim at the Traditional Family  At “Love and Inclusion are Family Values: Protecting All Families and Individuals,” a UN event held in commemoration of both the International Day of Transphobia and the International Day of Families, UN groups and Western countries made their case in favor of dismantling the traditional understanding of the family and advocating for diverse, non-heteronormative families as an optimal model. The Executive Director of Outright International said that “there is no single definition of family in international human rights treaties” and “diverse families […] are the reality, and we are the ideal.” 

Representatives from UN Women and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights affirmed this vision while inferring that those who disagree oppose human rights. “We also see backlash and resistance to gender equality and the rights of LGBTQI+ people in multilateral spaces, including the UN [...] The issue of family has been a flashpoint for this backlash,” said Laura Turquet of UN Women. 

Denmark said it is “trying to lead by example and try to create as broad a definition of family” as it can.  One speaker encouraged people to stop referring to diverse families and “non-conventional and non-traditional families” because it is offensive and non-inclusive. Fos Feminista referred to pro-family groups as “anti-rights” and “anti-gender” actors who “use the protection of the family to counter gender equality and SRHR advocacy but what these actors were really trying to protect were the heteronormative nuclear family.”

🗞 U.S. absent as World Health Assembly adopts pandemic treaty
”The governing body of the World Health Organization (WHO) adopted the text of a pandemic agreement that has been under negotiation since the COVID-19 pandemic. Notably absent from the meeting was the United States, which withdrew from the WHO following the election of President Donald Trump earlier this year.” Stefano Gennarini has the report.

🗞 High-Level Interactive Dialogue on Culture and Sustainable Development: Connecting Cultures in the Digital Era  - At a recent UN event, representatives from UNESCO and  OHCHR championed technology that supports “cultural pluralism,” saying that “an interconnected world must reflect the vast richness of global cultures” and that “cultural diversity and human rights in digital spaces is both a challenge and an opportunity.”  Critics say the UN's alleged respect for diversity of cultures ends when those cultures are at odds with UN agencies’ progressive interpretation of human rights. Groups that champion life and family are routinely referred to as backsliding human rights, while traditional member states face a similar pressure to align with Western culture on social policy issues.

🗞 Informal interactive dialogue of the Assembly on the implementation of the Pact for the Future -At the Summit of the Future held in September 2024, UN member states adopted The UN Pact of the Future, a non-binding commitment to increase international collaboration to tackle the world’s emerging challenges. The Pact includes chapters on sustainable development and financing for development, international peace and security, science, technology and innovation and digital cooperation, youth and future generations, and transforming global governance.

UN member states met this week to discuss how to best implement the Pact. However, not all member states are in full support of the document as it is. Russia said “the Pact is not fully consensus-based,” while Egypt emphasized the importance of national ownership, meaning that “every country has its sovereign right to adapt the recommendation according to national context (ensure the actions are localized).” The next interactive dialogue on implementation will be in July.