The International Family Equality Day (IFED) 2018 will be celebrated with the motto «Children’s rights matter».
On the 6th of May 2018, the next International Family Equality Day will be commemorated worldwide in order to celebrate both the beauty and importance of family diversity. A special focus will thereby lie on the necessity of extending full legal protection to all children. Hence the motto of the up-coming IFED edition: «Children’s rights matter».
It’s the loving care that counts
With this motto, the IFED committee aims at highlighting an important issue. «An extensive body of serious scientific research has proven that the sexual orientation of the parents has no influence on the well-being of a child», says IFED Coordinator Maria von Känel. «What really matters is the love, respect and care that a child receives. There is no doubt that rainbow families can provide such a loving and nurturing environment just as well as any other family.»
Many legal inequalities
Rainbow families and their children do face some special challenges though, but such challenges derive primarily from the prejudices that they encounter in society and all too often from the discrimination and lack of protection by state institutions. Nevertheless, children of rainbow families are still deprived of many crucial rights in countless countries of the world. For example, they oftentimes can neither have both parents listed on their birth certificate nor enjoy the assistance of both mums and dads when in hospital. Also, to name another example, they can never be sure that they get to remain with their other parent should the biological father or mother pass away.
How can such massive discrimination of these children be stopped? The first step is to provide equal legal recognition and protection to their families, as “the natural environment for the growth and well-being of all its members and particularly children”, as recognized also in the UN Convention on the rights of the child.
Read more: https://internationalfamilyequalityday.org/