Reclaim Families: A Feminist and Human Rights-Based Approach to Family Policy (CSW69 Side Event).

This event will explore perspectives of the concept of the family, centering the experiences of excluded groups and the Global South and sharing good practices on how families and family-supportive policies can advance the human rights of all.


Article 16[3] of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that "the family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State." Similarly, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action affirms that "in different cultural, political and social systems, various forms of the family exist. The rights, capabilities, and responsibilities of family members must be respected."

Moreover, the existence of various forms of families has been acknowledged by General recommendation No. 21 of CEDAW, which stated that families take many forms and underscored the obligation of equality within the family under all systems, "both at law and in private." Subsequent statements by other entities in the United Nations system confirm this understanding that "the concept of family‟ must be understood in a "wide sense" and that "families assume diverse forms and functions among and within countries."

Based on facts and realities, many household structures and family forms exist across the world, including traditional nuclear families; extended multi-generational families; women-headed households with children; civil unions; migrant transnational families - including mothers and fathers, and youth, working abroad to sustain their children, parents and/or other family members back home; households headed by grandmothers or other relatives with orphaned children; as well as those without families and safe households to go home to (e.g. homeless persons, including due to mental illness, domestic violence and sexual abuse, those who have been expelled from home by their parents or the case of children and adolescents who have run away from home as a result of neglect).

As many studies have shown, families can be a central locus of people's well-being, emotionally and financially, and a cornerstone of children's upbringing; but they can also be settings of discrimination, abuse, violence, and exploitation. Failure to recognize families in all their diverse forms and to address specific challenges and rights violations that occur within households perpetuates cycles of poverty, social exclusion, and inequality, undermines human capital accumulation, and leaves many behind. Also, States must combat the misuse of the discourse of 'protection of the family' as an attempt to ignore intrafamilial violence and discrimination suffered by groups such as children, women, older persons and persons with disabilities within traditional family contexts.

In order to be supportive of families, States should provide laws and policies that are fact-based, informed by data and analysis of trends, and be responsive to diverse realities and needs to be relevant, effective, and inclusive for all. As a guiding principle, legislative and policy development and reforms should ensure the respect and protection of the human rights and well-being of all individuals within families and households, without discrimination regardless of family form, and with particular attention to equal rights within marriage, to gender equality and protection from all forms of violence, including child abuse, gender-based and sexual violence.

Policies and programs for families must take on a feminist and human-rights-based approach. This means addressing family formation to foster healthy, resilient families, by ending child, early, and forced marriage, and through universal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights, including modern methods of contraception. Family-friendly policies also include those that support balancing work and family responsibilities, including through paid maternity and paternity leave, affordable quality child care and support for the care of the elderly, the ill and people living with HIV or disabilities. Co-sponsors: Permanent Mission of Brazil to the UN, Permanent Mission of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to the UN, Fòs Feminista, Outright International, ECMIA, Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir, DIVA for Equality Fiji

Watch Reclaim Families: A Feminist and Human Rights-Based Approach to Family Policy (CSW69 Side Event)!