Interim Staff:

On May 15, in celebration of the International Day of Families, the Group of Friends of the Family, a United Nations coalition of 29 member states, together with co-sponsoring civil society organizations hosted a high-level side event at the United Nations headquarters in New York entitled “The Family and the Future of Humanity”, bringing together diplomats, NGO representatives, and family advocates from around the world to highlight the irreplaceable role of the family, as the fundamental unit of society, and the obligation states and the UN system have to protect the traditional family model.

Most of the countries taking part were majority-Muslim states, as well as Russia and Belarus. The NGOs included Campaign Life Coalition, C-Fam, Family Watch International, The Heritage Foundation, and United Families International.

Pro-family events at the UN are quite rare and the pro-family message in Turtle Bay is often viewed as outdated hate speech, facing opposition from LGBT activists, feminist groups, and progressive governments at every level. However, despite this perception, the subject matter of this event was more aligned with the UN’s internationally recognized views on human rights than anti-family and pro-abortion activists would have you believe.

Article 16 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UNDHR) highlights that “The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State”. Article 16 also states that “Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family,” recognizing that the family stems from marriage as a union between a man and a woman. In 1993, the United Nations General Assembly, in an internationally supported act to cement the role of the family, declared that May 15 should be celebrated as the International Day of Families every year going forward.

The May 15 event was moderated by C-Fam executive vice president Lisa Correnti and kicked off with the adoption of a Special Communique on the Family by Pavel Evseenko, the deputy Permanent Representative of the Republic of Belarus, the chair nation of the Group of Friends of the Family. The Communique reaffirmed the UNDHR’s language on the family, and stressed that the 2030 Agenda must empower the family “to effectively fulfill its role in society” emphasizing the need for family-oriented policies in all sustainable development plans.

Heba Mostafa, the Minister Plenipotentiary of the Arab Republic of Egypt to the United Nations highlighted that in a world that is constantly changing economically and politically, “we have to remain conscious that the family remains the basic unit of society … and is the frontline and first-hand provider of care and support to its members.” 

Brian J. Willoughby, associate professor Brigham Young University’s School of Family, presented his extensive research on the importance of marriage and family formation to individual well-being, highlighting the link between child well-being and marriage as “consistent, strong, and impossible to ignore.”  Additional data over the last 20 years reveals that the level of happiness and life satisfaction experienced by young adults who marry is much higher compared to those who remain single or remain in dating relationships.

Stefano Gennarini, vice president for legal studies at C-Fam, gave a presentation laying out the blueprint for saving the family amidst a global battle against humanity. In criticizing those who wish to redefine the family and promote individual freedom above all else, Gennarini stated that “the battle to save the family, is the battle to save freedom. There is no real freedom without protection of the family, because the family is so fundamental to human nature. All other freedoms are illusory without the family.”

Kimberly Ells, speaker and author of The Invincible family, Motherhood and the Future of Humanity, lamented the fact that when she attended the annual two-week long Commission on the Status of Women in March, not once did she encounter the term mother spoken by any of the presenters. Instead, she heard the term ‘un-paid care worker’ referenced hundreds of times. Ells observed that “this unglamorous label is meant to reduce the contributions of mothers to mere servitude and to repel women from pursuing motherhood as one of their major life goals.” Ells asked, “who wants to grow up to be an ‘unpaid-care worker’?”

Christina Bennett, spokesperson from LiveAction shared LiveAction’s Baby Olivia video, a short film which has gone viral globally, depicting the development of a child in the womb from the moment of fertilization until birth. Bennett encouraged political and community leaders to urge school boards and teachers to bring this video to their schools as a way to counter radical sex-education curriculums which are leading youth into the hands of abortionists like Planned Parenthood.

Following the panelist presentations, the co-sponsoring civil society organizations were each given time to deliver their own statements. In his opening remarks, Campaign Life Coalition vice president Matthew Wojciechowski reaffirmed CLC’s commitment to upholding the family as the natural and fundamental unit of society, and to preserving marriage as a sacred union between a man and a woman.  Wojciechowski said, “It is within the family – the first school of love and responsibility – where mothers, fathers, and children learn to love and serve each other, and by extension, their communities.”

Wojciechowski criticized the many “bad actors” who “continue to devalue the family by redefining marriage, motherhood, fatherhood, and the basic understanding of what it means to be male and female,” pointing out Canada’s declining national fertility rate of 1.4 children per woman of childbearing age, “a symptom of policies that have, for decades, rejected the natural family model, traditional marriage, and its role in bringing new human life into existence”.

In his closing comments, Wojciechowski urged the Group of Friends of the Family and other UN stakeholders to prioritize policies that strengthen marriages and safeguard the rights of parents to raise and educate their children, indicating that the traditional family model is “the only social system that has withstood the test of time.” He said, “Families have a great responsibility in this world, and the right to fulfill this responsibility, and for this reason, states have a duty to protect the family, not just symbolically, but with real action and commitments. To preserve the family is to preserve humanity itself.”

Almaha Mubarak F.J. Al-thani, Second Secretary of the Permanent Mission of the State of Qatar to the United Nations, invited all pro-family leaders to Doha in October 2024 for the “Family and Contemporary Megatrends” conference to continue this valuable conversation on protecting the family.

The event concluded with a renewed commitment from members states, civil society, and participants to work towards policies that will help families flourish and remain at the centre of Agenda 2030 and the upcoming Summit for the Future.