Oral Statement on protection of the family at the 26th Session of the Human Rights Council—Geneva—June 22, 2014

The following statement was made in During the 26^th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva by an organization GLOBAL HAWC (Helping to advance women and children), under AGENDA item 8, ‘Follow up and implementation of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of action’. 

I respectfully address the council on behalf of Global Helping to Advance Women and Children and the UN Family Rights Caucus, an international coalition of NGOs.

Article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Right, proclaims that the family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society entitled to “protection by society and the State.”

The Vienna Declaration, in its comprehensive analysis of the international human rights system, also calls for broader family protection since five binding international human rights instruments call for such protection.

Yet until now, the protection of the family has largely been ignored by this Council.

UN consensus documents specify that the family needs to be protected against poverty, disease, substance abuse, unemployment, migration, war, family separation and barriers to reunification, and the worldwide disintegration of the family itself.

We applaud the ongoing dialogue concerning the Protection of the Family resolution, however we are concerned by attempts to change the focus of this historic resolution to individual rights, which numerous other resolutions amply address, rather than focus on the unique role the family plays in fulfilling the rights of its members. 

We hope this council will explore the evidence showing how the rights of individual family members can better be fulfilled when the family is protected.

The UN Secretary General has stated that “the stability and cohesiveness of communities and societies largely rest on the strength of the family” (Secretary General's Family Report 2011 (A/66/62–E/2011/4)).

We call upon States to fulfill their obligations to protect the family. 

Despite the fact that Annie Franklin who made the intervention on behalf of Global HAWC provided 25 copies of the text to the secretariat it was not initially posted as part of the record of the meeting. It was only after three reminders that the text was finally included in the record.

Chile to legalise abortion in certain circumstances

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Chile’s UN Ambassador to Geneva H.E Ms Maria Maurás Pérez announced last Thursday (June 19^th), during consideration of the outcome of Chile’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, that its current its pro-life laws will change and that abortion will be decriminalized in the following circumstances, in the case of rape, where a woman’s life is in danger and when a foetus is not viable.’

Pérez told the meeting that following the election of Michele Bachelet, as Chile’s President and the first 100 days of her Government, Chile would introduce a new gender agenda dealing with the rights equality and autonomy of women and will nominate a minister for women and gender equity. Ms Pérez explained that her government is concerned about violence and discrimination against women and will defend further the sexual and reproductive rights of all persons. Pérez continued by stating that her government will decriminalize termination of pregnancy in three areas, where the life of the mother is in danger, where a foetus is unviable and in the case of rape. Abortion is currently

completely illegal in Chile.

Pérez announced Chile’s commitment to implement 180 of the 185 suggestions in the UPR including a number of proposals put forth by other member states that Chile change its longstanding stance on the protection of the unborn.

Among the five rejected suggestions was the appeal by the Holy See that Chile continue its legal protection of the human person from the moment of conception, and that it safeguard marriage as being between one man and one woman.

The basis of the review was set out in two reports A/HRC/26/5 and 26/5 Addendum1. The main report 26/5 shows that 7 European Countries pressured Chile to repeal all laws criminalizing abortion and to take all necessary measures to ensure so called safe and legal abortion in cases of rape or incest and in cases of serious danger for the health of women and a number of countries also called on Chile to make sure that sexual and reproductive rights are respected and protected.

It is clear from both documents 26/5 and 26/5 Addendum 1 that the intention of the previous government was to reject the pressure from other member states

Marianne Lillebleg for Amnesty International welcomed Chile’s rejection of the Holy See’s recommendation that Chile should uphold and respect the rights of the human person from the moment of conception to natural death, which she falsely claimed, could have placed women’s lives in danger.

Human Rights Council attempt to include radical anti life documents in resolution on children under 5 years of age

The Human Rights Council during its recent 24th session sank to a new low in attempting to use a resolution on children under 5 years of age, as a vehicle to further their attack on human life and the family, by the inclusion of a pro-abortion and pro- sexual orientation agenda in the resolution.

The resolution which was tabled by Ireland along with Botswana, Austria, Mongolia and Uruguay, included references in the early drafts of the text to recently published, highly controversial documents, issued by the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC), known as ‘General Comments 14' and 15' in which the Committee attempt to expand the scope of the actual Convention on the Rights of the Child by the inclusion of issues such as, safe abortion, sexual orientation and gender identity, sexuality education and confidential counseling and advice for children without  parental knowledge or consent.

One might ask, as the Holy See negotiator Rubén Navarro did during the negotiations, 'what relevance do have these issues have to under 5 child mortality'?

General Comment 15, whilst it includes a very short section on children under 5, asserts that the UN CRC grants children the right to:

• “confidential counseling and advice without parental or legal guardian consent”

• “sexual and reproductive freedom”

• “safe abortion”

• sexual education, reproductive health services and medical treatment “without the permission of a parent, caregiver or guardian”

• rights related to “sexual orientation” and “gender identity”

General Comment 14 also states that a child has a right to preserve their identity and that this identity can include their sexual orientation.

This deliberate misrepresentation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the accompanying attempt to get UN Member States to unwittingly advance sexual rights for the youngest of children should not only be opposed, but these comments should also be roundly condemned and denounced by all responsible countries in the world.

Many of the delegates had no idea that General Comments 14 and 15 contained such harmful provisions for children and their families, and were very appreciative when the harmful agenda was drawn to their attention.

Ultimately the references to General Comments 14 and 15 were deleted from the resolution when they were strongly resisted by delegates from many Member States, however one has to remain vigilant in the lead up to the upcoming International negotiations for the post 2015 period and the proposed sustainable development goals (SBG's) which will replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDG's) 

Our Colleagues in Family Watch International have published an analysis, of the methods used by those who wish to advance their so called 'sexual rights' agenda, which is reprinted below

The 12-Step UN Program to Advance Sexual Rights.

While UN Committee “Comments” like Comments 14 and 15 of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child are not legally binding, the strategy used by “progressive” developed countries to give fictitious sexual rights legal weight is brilliant and usually very consistent.  Here is what they usually do and what they tried to do with the recent resolution in Geneva.

Step 1. Collaborate with a UN committee, agency or expert to produce a document, resolution, report, or comment purporting to solve a serious world problem.

Step 2. Give the document a nice-sounding name so that other nations will look bad if they oppose it.  (In this case the document was called “General comment No. 15 (2013) on the right of the child to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health (art. 24)” issued by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.)

Step 3. Make sure the document has multiple pages so that most busy diplomats, especially those from developing countries who don’t have multiple colleagues to share their workload, will likely not have time to read the whole thing.

Step. 4. Fill it with good provisions that most nations agree and sprinkle it with controversial “sexual rights” couched in the most deceptive/euphemistic language possible.

Step 5. Make sure the fictitious sexual rights are positioned as essential elements to a “rights-based approach” to solving the serious world problem.  Position everything in your sexual agenda as a “human right.”

Step 6. Make up your own data and facts and repeat them over and over again until people believe them (i.e., 8.5 million women have complications due to “illegal” abortion every year, therefore we have to legalize abortion as human right.  This figure was given at the side event at this session of the Human Rights Council at an event pushing for the decriminalization of abortion).

Step 7. To make your cause popular, organize a side event at the UN promoting the “rights-based approach” to solving the world problem you are addressing while downplaying or concealing the controversial sexual “rights” you plan to propose as the solution.

Step 8. Introduce an important-sounding resolution to solve the world problem to be negotiated by Member States, co-sponsored by one or two like-minded countries who are in on the plan.  (In this case the resolution was entitled, “Preventable mortality and morbidity of children under five as a human rights concern.”

Step 9. Recruit a strategic, unsuspecting developing country or two to co-sponsor your resolution (with the hidden sexual rights) to show cross-regional support for it. Make these developing countries out to be heroes for taking on this serious world problem.

Step 10. Insert a reference in the draft resolution to be negotiated endorsing the nice-sounding document created as per above (in this instance Comments 14 and 15 from the CRC Committee). If nations catch on to your plan and realize the controversial elements in the document you are  trying to get them to endorse, convince them to focus on all the positive elements in it that will be lost if it is not endorsed.  Make them feel responsible for the world problem not being solved if they do not go along with your plan.  (In this case make it appear they do not support preventing the death of children under 5.)

Step 11. If all else fails bribe or blackmail developing countries with threats to pull financial aid if they do not go along with the plan.

Step 12. Once your document establishing controversial sexual rights as legitimate rights essential to solving a world problem has been endorsed by UN Member States, take this to the national level.  Go into developing countries and convince their courts that all nations are under obligation to change their law to advance the specified sexual rights because they were endorsed in a UN resolution or document.  During UN country review processes (Universal Periodic Reviews) call these countries to account if they do not change their laws to advance these sexual rights.

And this is how it is done.