United Families International is at the United Nations this week. This is the second week of the 53rd Commission on the Status of Women. Men and women from all over the world have gathered here to debate the issues they feel are most crucial to women. The focus of this conference is “The equal sharing of responsibilities between women and men, including care-giving in the context of HIV/AIDS”. There is a lot of discussion about men and boys sharing in responsibilities that are primarily done by women.
Despite this focus, what do you think are the most hotly contested topics here? The topics that are receiving the most attention are: reproductive rights (abortion), any mention of the traditional family, and ratification of the CEDAW and CRC treaties. We discussed theCRC treaty in last week’s email and CEDAW is covered here.
Regardless of what the focus of CSW is each year, the opposition uses the topic to promote abortion, the destruction of the family, homosexual rights, and many other radical feminist ideas. There are hundreds of people here who are working feverishly to convince the world that these ideas are the enlightened, progressive way for countries to govern. They have employed hundreds of men and women to come to the Commission to see if this time they can be successful in defeating the pro-family groups and guarantee abortion on demand and the legalization of prostitution.
Fortunately, there are a handful of countries who still believe that the family is the fundamental unit of society and that life should be protected from the time of conception. We also have a small coalition of pro-family organizations who work together to educate those countries on the attempts of the other side to insert language that deceptively attempts to force countries to adopt their ideology.
We are grateful for those countries which are willing to stand side-by-side with the pro-family coalition and are willing to defy the strong-arm attempts of the European Union and the U.S. We also appriciate our partners in the coalition – Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, Concerned Women of America, the Right to Life organizations, Family Watch, REAL Women of Canada, and others.
Won’t you join us? Please consider making a donation today to help us defray the costs of these two weeks at the United Nations. We are few in number but we are able to achieve significant results because we are here. With your help we will be able to continue to make a difference here for all of you around the world. A donation of$25, $35, $50 or $100 goes along ways to helping us.
Check out our website and follow our blog. You will find regular updates of our successes here. This week there will be a lot of negotiating and tense moments as we support and educate the delegates so they are able to withstand the opposition. We look forward to sharing those moments with all of you.
Beverly Rice, UFI President