Pavel Parfentiev

Europe: Violations of Home Educating Families’ Human Rights [1]

Introduction: Home Education and Human Rights

According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights «Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children» (Article 26(3)). This fundamental right of the parents is recognized in the same Article of UDHR that proclaims the universal right to education itself. Therefore it is obvious that the universal right to education and the fundamental right of the parents to choose the kind of education for their children are intrinsically interconnected.

The reason why the drafters of the UDHR included this right of parents into this fundamental document was to avoid any future possibility of repeating the forced ideological indoctrination of children by the state through state-run schools like that done by the Nazis. Therefore the UDHR intended to preserve the freedom and diversity of education by linking it to the sphere of family freedom and fundamental rights of parents.

This prior right of parents is holistically interconnected with the whole set of internationally recognized fundamental rights of parents, such as their liberty to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions (Art. 18(4) of ICCPR, Art. 13(3) of ICESCR), their right to choose for their children schools, other than those established by the public authorities, which conform to such minimum educational standards as may be laid down or approved by the State (Art. 13(3) of ICESCR), their right to provide appropriate direction and guidance in the exercise of their children’s rights, including the right to education (Art. 5 of CRC taken together with its Art. 28) etc. All these rights should be viewed in the light of the fact, recognized in the Preamble to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, that “the family, as the fundamental group of society” is “the natural environment for the growth and well-being of all its members and particularly children”.

Taking into consideration all these facts it is obvious that the fundamental right of the parents to choose the kind of education for their children, which is the necessary protection of the society from any form of governmental totalitarianism, necessarily include both the right of the parents to establish and direct their own independent schools and their right to choose parents-run home education for their children.

This obvious truth was recently restated in the Berlin Declaration, the civil society document presented at the first Global Home Education Conference held in 2012 in Berlin, Germany [2]. Citing numerous international human rights instruments the Berlin Declaration reminds “that numerous international treaties and declarations recognize the essential, irreplaceable and fundamental role of parents and the family in the education and upbringing of children as a natural right that must be respected and protected by all governments”, affirms home education as a practice where parents and children undertake the activity of education themselves to pursue learning that meets the needs of the family and children, and condemns “the policies of those nations that prohibit the practice of home education and permit the persecution of home educating families through excessive or coercive fines, threats to parental custody and application of criminal sanctions”.

The aforementioned rights of parents and family are foundational and indispensable for preserving the genuine freedom of the society and are, therefore, closely interrelated with the whole scope of civil and political human rights.

The educational function and educational task naturally belongs to the family and parents. This educational dimension of the family precedes that of the state. It should not and cannot then be destroyed by the involvement of the State into the area of education. All the activities of the state in the area of education should always be performed with due respect to the abovementioned fundamental rights of parents – and children’s rights corresponding to them. That means that the government’s involvement into education should always follow the principle of subsidiarity. In the area of education the state is the secondary actor, while the family remains and would always be the primary and leading actor, whose role should prevail over governmental interests.

Unfortunately these basic human rights of parents and children’s rights in the area of education corresponding to them are seriously threatened in many countries of the world, including European countries. One of the main causes of this problem is the unbalanced and biased interpretation given to the international human rights treaties that groundlessly places the authority of the government in the educational sphere over the fundamental rights of parents [3].

As a matter of fact, the governments under different pretexts often seek to prohibit home education or to restrict the freedom of parents to choose it for their children without any real and due reasons. Very often it seems like an attempt to revive and to preserve the educational monopoly of the state as an instrument of restricting human freedom through indoctrination.

In some European countries, especially Germany and Sweden, these illegitimate restrictions imposed on the fundamental rights of parents are leading to brutal violations of basic human rights of both parents and children, including groundless removal of children from their parents as well as threatening the responsible and good parents whose only “failures” are their independent educational decisions with administrative and criminal sanctions. It’s necessary to note that those violations of the prior right of parents to choose the kind of education for their children are often accompanied by violations of the right to freedom of conscience and religion.

We consider these actions of the governments to constitute clear and serious human rights violations. Below is a list of some of the recent cases of this kind, based on the information gathered from open sources or provided to us by different NGOs including the Home School Legal Defense Association, an international human rights advocacy organization based in USA.

Violations of Human Rights of Home Educators in Sweden

The Case of Domenic Johansson

The Case of Domenic Johansson is illustrative for the human rights violations home educators and their children are facing in Sweden. The application before the European Court of Human Rights gives the following overview of the case:

On June 26th, 2009, Domenic Johansson, a seven year-old boy (born on September 9, 2001) who is a dual citizen of Sweden and India, was seated in a commercial airliner awaiting departure of a flight to India. Without a court order or any kind of preliminary notification, Swedish authorities boarded the plane and removed Domenic from the custody of his parents, Christer Johansson (a Swedish citizen) and Annie Johansson (an Indian citizen). The sole purpose of the removal of Domenic was to prevent his parents from moving with him to India.

At the time of the removal, the sole issue that motivated the actions of the Swedish government was the fact that Domenic was being homeschooled. No other information concerning minor medical issues (which have arisen since the boy was unlawfully removed from his parents) was known to any Swedish authority at the time he was peremptorily removed from his parents.

Swedish officials removed this boy from an international flight solely to prevent his parents from moving to another nation and from educating him in a manner that is lawful in India, in Sweden, and in a majority of nations. 

Since this extraordinary separation on June 26th, 2009, Mr. and Mrs. Johansson have been allowed extremely limited contact with their son and only under overbearing state supervision. All attempts by the parents to offer alternatives for Domenic’s education, as well as their offers of sincere cooperation on the other minor matters that have since been addressed, have been rebuffed by the Swedish authorities. It now appears obvious that the Swedish government intends to keep permanent custody of this boy simply because his parents wished to move to India and to homeschool him [4].

Since then the child is still separated from his parents on the sole ground of being home educated at the time of the removal [5].

Families Forced into Exile: Himmelstrands and Other Cases

Many other home educating families that faced the danger of administrative persecution or were forced to pay large fines for merely home educating their children had to leave Sweden in order to live and educate their children in countries that are more tolerant and are respecting their human rights.

Among those who had to leave their native country because of this governmental persecution of home educators is Jonas Himmelstrand, the president of the national home education organizations of Sweden ROHUS, who left Sweden in 2012 [6].

Mr. Himmelstrand’s decision was also based on his substantiated fear that social workers might seize their children in response to their decision to educate them at home.

According to the news website New American, local school officials reported the Himmelstrand family to the social services in November of last year when their 7-year-old son did not show up at the local school. Mr Himmelstrand — like many other homeschoolers in Sweden — was forced to meet with local officials to explain himself.

Himmelstrand went to the social services and asked the social services if they would guarantee that his family could remain in Sweden safely. They said no, matter-of-factly stating that to homeschool safely, the family would probably have to leave country.

The following month, the family received a letter explaining that the authorities had decided to impose a fine of about $26,000 – $13,000 per parent. “At that point we kind of felt like, are these people crazy?” Himmelstrand told The New American in a telephone interview. “Don’t they realise that would ruin our family?”

The Himmelstrands responded with a letter asking officials to clarify whether they intended to split up their family based on this political principle. The family also told authorities that they would leave as exiles before allowing themselves to be destroyed by the punitive fines.

The local government responded with a letter imposing yet another fine. Mr. Himmelstrand said this was the last straw. 

The family moved promptly thereafter, not making the news public until everyone was safely beyond the reach of Swedish officials. Mr. Himmelstrand said he did not want to wait around to find out what the local government’s next move might be.

They moved to Aland, a Swedish-speaking island off the coast of Finland [7].

Himmelstrands family is just one of the families that had to leave Sweden and Germany because of state persecution for their legitimate educational choices [8].

Violations of Human Rights of Home Educators in Germany

The right of educational freedom is severely violated in Germany. Home educators are persecuted and could be deprived of their custody rights, fined or threatened with jail sentences. This is done under the unbelievable pretext that the uniform school education is necessary in order to preserve the pluralistic society and to prevent “the emergence of parallel societies based on separate philosophical convictions” [9]. This logic of prohibiting pluralism and diversity in order to preserve pluralism and diversity is, in our mind, totally opposed to the genuine logic of universally recognized human rights norms.

The Wunderlich family

In October 2012, state youth officials were granted formal legal custody of the Wunderlich children by a German court based solely on the fact that the family was homeschooling.

The children of the Wunderlich family were seized by the state authorities in a violent way just because their parents were home educating.

Dirk Wunderlich, father, described the frightening turn of events:

“I looked through a window and saw many people, police, and special agents, all armed. They told me they wanted to come in to speak with me. I tried to ask questions, but within seconds, three police officers brought a battering ram and were about to break the door in, so I opened it.

The police shoved me into a chair and wouldn’t let me even make a phone call at first. It was chaotic as they told me they had an order to take the children. At my slightest movement the agents would grab me, as if I were a terrorist. You would never expect anything like this to happen in our calm, peaceful village. It was like a scene out of a science fiction movie. Our neighbors and children have been traumatized by this invasion.” [10]

Andreas Vogt, the attorney representing the Wunderlich family whose children were seized in an early morning raid on August 29, says that the actions of social workers remind him of the harsh policies of the former communist East Germany. The Wunderlichs had not seen or heard from their children since they were taken and only knew that they were residing in some kind of group home.

The children were later returned to the family by the court on the condition that they would attend an ordinary school. The family was also denied the possibility to leave the country with the children in order to home educate them in a country where it is permitted.

Given that no charges were ever brought against the parents other than their home educating their children, the only reason for this violent interference into their family life was the educational choice of the parents. It’s also necessary to note that no claims were made that the education provided by the family was in any way inappropriate or of unfitting quality [11].

The Schaum family

Thomas and Marit Schaum, parents of nine children educated at home living in the German state of Hesse have also faced state persecution for their legitimate educational choice. In 2013 in order to stop them home educating a sentence of six months’ imprisonment for each of the parents has been issued by penalty order – without a formal trial. Thomas Schaum (51) and his wife Marit (48) from the German state of Hessia have been accused of  “permanently and obstinately obstructing compulsary school attendance” by the authorities and the state attorney. As a result of the trial the parents were criminally convicted and fined over 1,200 euros (about $2,000) for not sending their children to school [12].

The Dudek family

In 2008 the parents of a homeschooling Dudek family in the German state of Hesse have each been sentenced to three months in prison for the “crime” of educating their seven children at home [13]. In 2009 the jail sentence was overturned by the higher court and substituted with criminal fines. Many times this family was criminally fined for home educating their children. In 2011 regional school officials have threatened to “take custody of the children from the parents” or to “transport the children to school by force.” [14]

In 2013 Daniel Dudek applied to spend a second semester at the “Südringgauschule” in order to obtain his secondary school certificate at the school. He was rejected by the authorities and was ordered to start in 9th form. The state’s supervisory school authority in Bebra, Germany stipulated a fine against the 16-year-old student because he had declined to attend the ninth grade of the Südringgauschule in Herleshausen [15].

Speakers participating in the Conference were representing the pro-family groups from different world countries: Jack Hennick (USA), Fabrice Sorlan (France), Alexey Komov ( Russia ), Levan Vasadze (Georgia).

There was discussed a wide range of issues related to the protection of the natural family, marriage, and traditional family values. Particular attention was paid to the analysis of the legislative prohibition of discrimination on the ground of “sexual orientation”, recently approved by the Georgian Parliament.

The conference adopted the Tbilisi Declaration, which, along with the participants of the event, was endorsed by many leading pro-family organizations from different countries of the world. The support for the Declsaration was also expressed by Lorenzo Fontana, MEP from Italy.

 Declaration of the regional conference of the World Congress of Families
[The Tbilisi Declaration]

Tbilisi, Georgia, May 17^th, 2014

Regarding Georgia’s adoption of Law on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination

We, the participants of the regional conference of the World Congress of Families gathered in Tbilisi, Georgia, as well as the representatives of the pro-family civil society organizations and groups from different countries of the world are declaring the following:

The natural family, based on the life-long marital union of a man and a woman, “is the bedrock of society, the strength of our nations, and the hope of humanity” [1]. The “family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State” (Art. 16(3) of UDHR).

Therefore the state, the society and the law should protect and not threaten the family, marriage and the traditional moral values related to them.

It has come to our attention that Georgia, following the demands of the European Union officials related to the Association Agreement between Georgia and the EU, and to the EU Visa Liberalization Action plan, has recently initiated and adopted the Law on Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination.

Having familiarized ourselves with the law, it is our understanding that your traditional country with ancient and authentic culture, one of the oldest Christian societies in the world, has effectively agreed to join the list of states who choose to ban expression of freedom of its citizens opposing the immoral developments and propaganda of sexual behaviors, regarded as sinful and unacceptable in Christian tradition, and harmful for the family, for children and for the society as a whole. Such legal approaches are being destructive for the family and for the public morals instead of protecting them. Under pretext of the protection from discrimination they lead to serious discrimination of people respecting traditional moral and family values, especially Christians, and to the massive human rights violations. Those proven guilty under the law become subjected to Georgia’s criminal code under which the physical persons can be subjected to correctional labor for up to 1 year, or imprisonment of up to 2 years and legal organizations can be liquidated.

Even EU law itself, provided in the EU Council Directive 2000/78/EC of 27 November 2000 which in itself is highly questionable from the point of views of the rule of law and of the adequacy of its legal foundations, is much more narrow that the new Georgian law. The actual EU law prohibits “discrimination” on the ground of “sexual orientation” only in employment and occupation, and not in all the areas as the new law of Georgia. It’s strange for us that Georgian lawmakers decided to go further by the way of this doubtful development, than the EU itself.

We know Georgia as one of the oldest and most tolerant nations in the world, where in its capital Tbilisi for centuries various congregations of Christian churches, a mosque and a synagogue have stood side-by-side on the same street and allowed their respective flocks to practice their religion in peace and security.  Historically your kings have reduced taxes for religious and ethnic minorities, while taxing to a greater extent own Christian majority.  Even during the Soviet period Georgia was regarded as one of the most ethnically diverse soviet republics with up to 40% of its population consisting of non-Georgians and non-Christians, living together in peace and prosperity till the breakup of Soviet Union.  It is known worldwide that the 26 century old Jewish settlements in Georgia are perhaps the only ones in the world without a single documented case of anti-Semitism.  We know that unlike painful European Reformation and religious wars, which have cost millions of lives in Europe, faith and knowledge have also co-existed peacefully in Georgia during centuries.

We believe that pseudo-values connected with promotion of “sexual diversity” and favoring different kinds of immoral and perverse sexual behaviors, are harmful for the society and have nothing to do with the real foundational values of humanity and with the genuine and universally recognized human rights.  They are contradicting the values and teachings of major great religions of our planet.  These pseudo-values are designed to destroy the institution of the family, moral and spiritual foundations of the society and to drive human beings into solitude and enslavement to vulgar materialism and lust.  Family statistics in Western Europe as well as unprecedented levels of debt for western population, alarming rise of consumption of anti-depressants, addictive medicaments as well as narcotics, rampant child violence and rising suicide rates are a vivid proof of that.  To our despair, Western Europe in particular and western culture in general, seem now to be on the path to self-destruction through family demise and moral degradation.

The law in question reflects these sad trends.  Instead of protecting minorities, which are already protected in Georgia by proven, centuries’ old traditions of your diverse society, it invites and promotes not only immoral, but also counterproductive, litigationist behavior and mentality.  Many western nations suffer dearly from such behavior and mentality and so will suffer Georgia.  Therefore the law presents an unnatural and an artificial imposition of pseudo-morality upon Georgian traditional society.  It will not be accepted by Georgians and will pose a tangible problem to the law enforcement.  We are informed, that despite a unanimous voting for it in the Parliament, the vast majority of Georgians are against it. The law is thus in essence undemocratic, despite the formal signs of democratic procedures around it. Dozens of the most respected intellectual, cultural and religious leaders of Georgia as well as many common people have already expressed their concern over those alarming trends by endorsing the famous open letter to the special advisor of the European Union on legal and constitutional issues in Georgia Mr. Thomas Hammarberg [2].

Based on the above we hereby strongly urge the Government and politicians of Georgia to repeal this law and to either cancel it altogether or to alter it in order to reflect the wishes and values of Georgian people in the truly democratic way.

We ask the organizers of the Tbilisi Regional Conference of the World Congress of Families to transmit this call to the Government, politicians and civil society of Georgia.

Executive Summary

The present Report deals with issues around the actions of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child charged with overseeing the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Particular attention is given to past ultra vires (beyond its authority) acts by the Committee. The Report notes with concern that many CRC acts can be viewed as being:

• contrary to the principle of sovereign equality of UN member States (Article 2 of the UN Charter);
• beyond the mandate of the Committee;
• contrary to or not based on intergovernmental consensus.

In particular, its acts included:

• pressuring states to change their abortion laws irrespective of intergovernmental consensus and with no foundation in international human rights instruments;
• indirectly promoting controversial concepts with no established intergovernmental consensus behind them (legalising same-sex sexual relationships, legal recognition of same-sex marriages and partnerships, decriminalisation of prostitution);
• demanding that states should give children sexuality education regardless of and access to reproductive health services regardless of and without parental consent and knowledge, with no basis in the UNCRC or other international human rights instruments whatsoever and contrary to the Cairo Programme of Action and the Beijing Platform for Action (both showing a degree of intergovernmental recognition at the UN level);
• using an ultra vires (beyond its authority) interpretation of the UNCRC to unlawfully introduce a new ‘obligation’ for the states parties (to outlaw any parental corporal punishment of children) not following from the UNCRC itself, and then demanding compliance, up to the point of changing their national legislation;
• demanding of states (contrary to the principle of the sovereign equality of states and with no basis in the UNCRC) ratification of international agreements hitherto not signed by them.
• unlawfully interfering in religious freedoms.

All these acts (documented in the Appendix), regardless of their ethical assessment, are shown to be ultra vires and must be recognised as violating the principle of sovereign equality and exceeding the treaty monitoring body mandate. The Committee’s ultra vires acts, though not directly legally binding, seriously affect the legal regime in the states parties to the UNCRC. They affect national law enforcement practice, changes to national legislation, and influence legally binding decisions by other international bodies.

Such ultra vires acts by the Committee must, nevertheless, be recognised as internationally illicit and, therefore, null and void.

Ultra vires acts by the Committee can seriously threaten the sustainability of international human rights framework, the sovereignty of the states parties, the cultural identity of their peoples, and the standing of the family, which is ‘the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State’ (Article 16(3) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights), and, therefore, by the international community.

In these circumstances it is deemed inappropriate and dangerous for the states parties to grant the Committee new powers by signing and ratifying the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on a communications procedure (A/RES/66/138).

A special section of the Report highlights specific problems inherent the Protocol, such as:

• procedural flaws in its development;
• its undermining of domestic legislation and judicial systems;
• its erosion of the exhaustion of domestic remedies rule;
• its potential belittlement of the value of the family.

The Report points out that to remedy the situation created by the Committee’s ultra vires acts, legitimately concerned states parties can employ a number of means, such as:

• exercising their right to issue interpretative declarations on the UNCRC;
• exercising their right to point out the limits of the Committee’s mandate in replying to its requests for additional information related to periodic reports, as well as in other kinds of official statements;
• warning the Committee of the possibility of their denunciation of the UNCRC in case a relevant reform of its activities does not take place;
• refusing to ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on a communications procedure until a relevant reform of the Committee is taken place;
• actively participating in reforming UN treaty bodies to bring their activities into strict conformity with their mandates, to give it greater transparency, and to bring it under more effective states parties’ control.

These means can, after due assessment of the consequences of their implementation, be employed at the discretion of states to protect the rights of their sovereign peoples, the family, and their cultural, religious, and moral identity.

Apart from containing additional information on the Committee’s activities post-2012 (including its 65^th session), the present revised version of the Report has been substantially restructured for improved readability and expanded with new sections on various issues, miscellaneous addenda, as well as a special Appendix containing excerpts from CRC documents published in 2012-2014.

Download the complete Report (pdf)

According to the rules of ECtHR, non-governmental organisations can, with the Court’s permission, make formal submissions presenting their position on the legal, ethical, and social aspects of a case as a third party.

The case in question deals with three complaints against the Russian government filed with the Court (Bayev v. Russia, App. No. 67667/09, Kiselev v. Russia, App. No. 44092/12, and Alekseyev v. Russia, App. No. 56717/12). The complainants are three gay activists fined for breaking the relevant regional Russian laws prohibiting propaganda of homosexuality among children. For example, in 2009 one of them, Nikolay Bayev (by whose name the case is now referred to in the Court’s documents database) held a protest in front of a Ryazan school displaying banners reading ‘Homosexuality is normal’ and ‘I’m proud of my homosexuality’, for which he was fined 1500 roubles (around $50). However, online articles describing the actions imply they were aimed at attracting a civil penalty specifically to enable them to challenge the relevant laws in Russian courts and the European Court of Human Rights.

The case was officially communicated by ECtHR in October last year. The Russian laws protecting children from propaganda of homosexuality, the complainants argued, had had them discriminated against, and infringed on their right to freedom of expression guaranteed under Article 10 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. According to the Court’s statement of facts, the complainants also claimed the laws in question prohibited ‘mere mention of homosexuality’, irrespective of the content of the message.

These claims are contested by the Family and Demography Foundation:

‘We are of the opinion that the statutory ban on propaganda of homosexuality among children is fully compliant with all the fundamental norms of international law, including European Convention of Human RIghts,’ argues the Foundation’s Legal Affairs Director and World Congress of Families Advisor for International Human Rights Law Pavel Parfentiev. ‘It is well documented in medical research that homosexual lifestyle is associated with increased risks to one’s physical and mental health. Moreover, most Russian citizens regard homosexualism and its propaganda as immoral. Given all that, the Convention and the European Court’s own case-law recognise the protection of health and morals of the children, as well as the protection of the family in its traditional sense, as legitimate grounds for restricting an individual’s right to freedom of expression. As for claims that the law supposedly prohibits mere mentioning of homosexuality, they are altogether incorrect.’

The Foundation applied to the Court for permission to present, in accordance with ECtHR rules, its position on the case’s legal and ethical aspects.

‘Having had applied for the permission to state our position on the case, which the Court granted in mid-January, we have duly submitted our written observations,’ comments Mr Parfentiev. ‘We are confident that the disputed Russian law is not infringing anyone’s rights and is not discriminating against anyone. Unfortunately, given that, as we think, in the last years many of ECtHR’s rulings on these matters were sadly very ideological in nature and clearly served the interests of ‘sexual minorities’ rather than the rule of law itself, we cannot be sure the Court will agree with our arguments. But it would have been wrong to remain silent.’

The Family and Demography Foundation is a Russian non-profit organization primarily engaged in family and parental rights advocacy and the protection of human rights and human dignity relevant to it. Along with the For Family Rights NGO, the Foundation is a co-founder of the FamilyPolicy.RU Advocacy group providing lawmakers, the public, and the media with expert advice informing family- and parents-friendly policies. The Foundation also serves as World Congress of Families’ representative in Russia, actively engaged in preparations for WCF VIII, due to take place in Moscow, September 2014.

The full English text of the observations submitted by the Foundation to the European Court of Human Rights will later be available online at FamilyPolicy.RU

Pavel Parfentiev

Protecting the Family at the International Level
Reclaiming the True Meaning of International Law

A 3^rd All-Ukrainian Parents’ Forum Address

The family based on a marital union of a man and a woman aimed at the begetting and raising of children, is the foundation of the human society, of every culture, and all the civilizations. This simple truth is universal. That is, it is universally acknowledged wherever there is still humanity left, for to deny it is to deny the very human nature and to threaten the very existence of humankind.

Life and family are the two primal elements of any people, any nation. Whereas in a society one cannot have social justice without abolishing slavery, establishing the rule of law and the presumption of innocence, without life and family there can be no society in the first place. A nation that ceases to acknowledge the sanctity of human life is undermining itself; a nation that threatens the family is rapidly approaching self-destruction.

No sensible people would destroy itself. However, nowadays whole nations are virtually pushed to self-destruction. Paradoxically, this is being done in the name of so-called “human rights”. We are told to believe that human rights require killing unborn children, tolerating propaganda of homosexualism and other immoral and deviant forms of sexual behaviour, recognizing cohabitating homosexuals as “families”, allowing them to adopt and raise children. We are told that the rights of the child are being violated by their own parents wanting to give them moral and religious education or trying to maintain a sensible discipline, and, at the same time, that probably the biggest threat to our society is the so-called “domestic violence”, tackling which demands intense constant supervision of the parents by the state.

These are all lies. There is no mention of the so-called “right to abortion” in any international human rights treaty. The alleged right to promote immorality, undermine the natural idea of the family and supplant it with artificial homosexual constructs follows from no human rights instrument. No international agreement bans loving parents from raising their children the way they want, in accordance with their faith and convictions. Unfortunately, today’s human rights discourse is saturated with lies that many take for undisputed truths, daily passed for “international human rights standards” and imposed upon nations and peoples of the world as something they must comply with, whatever they think of it.

As a Belgian lawyer Jakob Cornides, J.D., rightly points out, “What was once considered a crime is to be transformed into a right, and what was once considered justice into a human rights violation”[1].

How did it happen, and how can we oppose it? How did something that another Belgian expert Marguerite Peeters, making it a title of her study of global control mechanisms, neatly named “Hijacking Democracy: The Power Shift to the Unelected” come about?

According to its 1945 Charter, the United Nations was established “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind”. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights aimed at protecting the inalienable rights of all people to preclude the repeating of the horrors of Nazism.

Today many are beginning to forget what some of these horrors were. For example, ten of the Nazi leaders were denounced by the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal because under them “abortions were encouraged and even forced”, and it was called “a crime against humanity” [2].

The Nazi state was taking children away from their parents and appropriating the right to educate them. Parents who did not wish their children to join the Hitlerjugend were being persecuted and charged with “abuse of parental rights”. It is to preclude the repeating of these very horrors that Article 26 of UDHR declared that parents have “a prior right to choose the kind of education . . . given to their children”. Later Article 18(4) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights expanded this right to cover “the liberty of parents . . . to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions”.

Even the Convention on the Rights of the Child, with its many controversial provisions, recognizes the right of the child not be separated from his or her parents against their will, save for exceptional circumstances (Article 9), and the right to appropriate direction and guidance by parents in the exercise of his or her rights (Article 5).

All these fundamental rights are currently being violated in numerous developed countries, including Europe. These grave violations of genuine human rights that can justifiably be classified as criminal are formally perpetrated in the name of protecting human rights and the rights of the child, while actually contravening the most fundamental, universal, and generally acknowledged norms of international law.

Using human rights rhetoric as a cover, abortions are being propagandized to limit birth rates throughout the world. Coupled with immorality falsely promoted as freedom, this encourages entire peoples to demographic suicide. It is common knowledge that increasing, or at least maintaining, population figures is vital to successful economic and social development of every nation. Merely maintaining its population size requires aggregate birth rates to stay above 2.1 child per woman. In Ukraine it is currently below 1.5. The only way out for a nation thus threatened is to revive the traditional large family, the family way of life, traditional family and moral values.

UHDR and ICCPR are both explicit in declaring that the family is the “natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State”. They are equally clear in that “men and women of full age” have the right to marry and to found a family. Only this, the natural kind of family based on a marital union of a man and a woman and aimed at the begetting and raising of children, is recognized by norms of international law.

The same instruments indicate that individual rights are linked to obligations and responsibilities towards the society, and most of them can be limited by law when necessary for protecting the public order, health, morals, and the rights of others. Public order is recognized in international law as norms and values without which a democratic society cannot remain secure and stable.

The natural family is a universal value recognized by international law, and the basis of every society. It is impossible for any society, democratic ones included, to exist without it. That is why undermining the family, any attempt at discrediting it, limiting the natural rights of the parents, equalizing it with other forms of cohabitation, including homosexual ones, propaganda aimed against the family and basic family values are all actions undermining the very fundamentals of public order.

They are essentially similar to acts expressly prohibited by international law, like propaganda of war, or advocating racial or religious hatred. Limiting or prohibiting those does not constitute violation of human rights. On the contrary, protecting the family is an action necessary to protect genuine human rights universally recognized by all of mankind. This is the direct corollary of true fundamentals of international law genuinely recognized by the peoples of the world.

Unfortunately, the fundamentals of international law are being aggressively attacked through unlawful actions of a rout of activists and the organizations, both local and international, they managed to hijack. Regularly targeted by this destructive kind of activism are reputable international institutions, UN treaty monitoring bodies in particular, like the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, the Human Rights Committee, and some Council of Europe bodies, including the European Court of Human Rights itself.

This in fact amounts to a concerted effort by a relatively small group of people to radically change the society on a global scale – all in pursuit of their narrow interests. This is deliberate social engineering, which, though retaining an outwardly peaceful and civilized appearance, is highly aggressive in its manifestations. Pretending to be “asserting democratic values”, it has nothing democratic about it as it seeks to bypass the will of sovereign peoples and their elected governments. Employing freedom-loving rhetoric, it is incompatible with freedom as it consistently silences all dissent. Its logical end result would be a new dictatorship denying all that the humankind held to be its main values – true dignity, family, faith, and morals.

Nowadays NGOs advocating anti-family ideas are active in many of the most important international bodies, consistently and expertly influencing their decisions. They are zealously lobbying for their representatives to be included in official government delegations, put into high-ranking positions inside these organizations, while those who support life, family, and morals are facing tremendous pressure barring them from participating in international processes.

Advocating radical social ideas that would establish an unnatural new social order, these well-organized groups are actively engaging with intergovernmental bodies such as the UN, the Council of Europe, and the European Union, influencing international talks, various instruments and decisions, while at the same time using the international funding they manage to secure to support, usually through direct financing, their ideological allies at the local level. Acting against the true interests of their peoples, these local organizations are lobbying hard their respective governments, pushing them to comply with illegal anti-family recommendations they claim to be “international standards”.

Lastly, the success of this global operation is secured through serious financial and political leverage, in particular, blackmail involving humanitarian and financial aid. Thus, bypassing national sovereignty and without any real legal foundation, radical social ideas are becoming the new international legislation.

Here are but a couple of examples illustrating this reality.

UN treaty monitoring bodies are meant to be independent expert groups. Albeit nominated and appointed by states parties, once elected, they are totally independent and unaccountable. International anti-family pressure groups, like those advocating radical feminism or special rights for homosexuals, are exerting considerable efforts for these appointments to specifically include their own supporters. Thus staffed, is it any wonder that the activities of these treaty bodies often prove to be quite destructive?

In particular, although not authorized by their respective treaties to pass binding interpretations of their text, these Committees are regularly doing just so in their so-called “General comments”. These comments are often used to effectively rewrite norms of international law, giving them a wholly different meaning not intended by the parties by whom they were ratified.

For example, the CEDAW Committee have on more than one occasion demanded from sovereign states to rewrite their constitutions. It demanded that they abolish holidays such as “Mother’s Day” or “Father’s Day”. Dozens of times it demanded that their national legislation should be rewritten to provide a right to “swift and easy” abortions. It even argued for legalizing prostitution and the right of underage girl to access contraceptives and other “reproductive health” services without their parents’ consent. In vain may you browse the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women looking for any mention of these rights. There are none. These fictitious “rights” and the states parties’ “obligations” allegedly following from them are all unauthorized illegal constructs produced by the Committee itself in its interpretations.

Both CEDAW and CRC, another UN treaty monitoring body, in their recommendations have repeatedly insisted that all children, boys and girls alike, must have access to comprehensive sexual education. The latter was especially insistent that such access must be granted regardless of their parents’ consent.

One must have a clear understanding what this “sexual education” advocated by UN-affiliated organizations is. In vain may you search their documents for information on family values and dangers of promiscuity, encouragement of premarital continence, and other sensible advice. Their content is quite opposite. WHO, for example, have issued a Standards for Sexuality Education in Europe. A framework for policy makers, educational and health authorities. It calls for sexual education for children from new-born and onwards. Document demands that children aged 0 to 4 (!) be shown the “enjoyment and pleasure when touching one’s own body, early childhood masturbation” (p. 38). It then demands that children aged 9 to 12 be given information on their “sexual rights, as defined by . . . WAS” (World Association for Sexual Health) (p. 45). One of these “sexual rights” is defined by WAS as “[t]he right to sexual pleasure. Sexual pleasure, including autoeroticism, is a source of physical, psychological, intellectual and spiritual well being”. There is, incidentally, no mention in international human rights treaties of any “sexual rights” whatsoever – there simply is none among the legally binding international norms.

Here is another striking example of UN treaty monitoring bodies illegally redefining norms of international law. In 2006, relying on minor, questionable, and sometimes outright false arguments, the Committee on the Rights of the Child in its General comment no. 8 have ruled that from that moment on all states must prohibit corporal punishment of children, even by their own parents. A slap on a naughty child’s bottom must be regarded as intolerable abuse of children and be prosecuted accordingly. This surprising inference did not, however, follow from the text of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Committee itself noted in its commentary that such a ban was not even considered when the Convention was drafted. Moreover, ratifying it, the Republic of Singapore had expressly declared that it considered the Convention as not prohibiting judicious application of corporal punishment in the best interests of the child, something that no-one objected to – and something the Committee had, incidentally, failed to mention. In addition to that, USSR’s proposal to completely ban corporal punishment of children in schools was rejected by the majority of states parties.

In its 2011 General comment no. 13 the Committee went even further, demanding that state parties that had not yet done so must immediately ratify a whole number of international treaties and review and withdraw declarations and reservations contrary to the object and purpose of the Convention. It demanded that any kind of extremely widely interpretable “violence” against children, including not only spanking, but also “scaring or ridiculing” the child, must be prosecuted. Lastly, it demanded that the state parties must by all means allocate necessary funding for the implementation of its decisions, and also establish special national child protection agencies.

Such recommendations constitute clear and blatant intrusion into national sovereignty of each and every state. One can only wonder why these states are not resisting this intrusion, and often cave in to this illegal pressure by UN committees. In particular, in 2007 many nations have obediently followed this illegal recommendation and criminalized any corporal punishment by parents, including spanking. This was done in spite of there being virtually no legal ground for such a move in international norms.

Instead of it, the Committee’s experts are, in fact, relying on dubious arbitrary constructs created and propagated by social engineering radical “experts”. Using this procedural back door, and without any oversight by the sovereign peoples, international law is step by step being amended with new concepts – such as radical theories of gender construction.

For example, in 2006 a group of experts advocating so-called “sexual minority rights” adopted a document called The Yogyakarta Principles. By misinterpreting the relevant international legal norms, its authors attempted to create new rights with no real foundation for them. In particular, this document claims that “gender identity” amounts to “each person’s deeply felt internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond with the sex assigned at birth”. In spite of explicit objections from a whole number of states, first, UN officials began citing these Principles, and then documents of similar nature began to be quoted in official Council of Europe documents.

Despite being extremely questionable scientifically, theories of sex-independent “gender identity” are increasingly informing the definitions being used first in “soft” international recommendations, and then, having become viewed as a given, in legally binding norms. For example, Article 3 of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence that Ukraine signed on November 7, 2011, but not yet ratified, explicitly defines gender as “socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities and attributes”, while Article 14 of the same document demands that children should be taught “non-stereotyped gender roles”. This has already caused the Catholic Polish Episcopal Conference to protest against this document, declaring that it is “based on utterly unacceptable and false ideological premises”.

All this is not merely destructive; it is a matter of manifestly unlawful activities using false references to international law to undermine the sovereignty of independent nations and the welfare of peoples, families, and individuals. We are currently at the critical turning point: either the peoples of the world manage to change this situation, pushing the highest echelons of international politics back towards working for their good, protecting the family, providing genuine necessary protection for the childhood, or radical activists continue using international bodies to irrevocably undermine families, peoples, and societies. The latter would mean that, increasingly losing all legitimacy, these international bodies will inevitably become the aggressor in a sort of new global war – the war against family and mankind. The impact of today’s international family policy on the life of every nation is too great to be ignored. The civil societies of the world must make a conscientious decision which international force to support – the one advocating a healthy family-based society, or the one pursuing its unmaking.

What chance do we have of turning the situation around, of protecting our peoples, our families, and our children? There is one, and it is one we ought to use. Here is what we must do to succeed:

1. It would be a mistake to believe that the anti-family trends outlined above have really become some sort of international standard or an unshakable norm. In reality, international politics is becoming a battle ground in the fight to protect the family. It is vital that all rational state and public forces ally on the international stage against those who seek to destroy the family, the traditional family and moral values, and the sanctity of human life. Anti-family organizations appropriating the right to speak for the civil society are currently enjoying comfortable representation in international organizations. This right must be denied. Pro-family civil society forces must step by step increase their presence on the international stage, just as the anti-family forces did – in a consistent, well thought-out, and competent manner, finding and using all the necessary resources available.

A special role in this effort is played by international initiatives such as the World Congress of Families – the largest international project of its kind uniting supporters of the natural family based on the marriage of a man and a woman, traditional family and moral values, people opposed to abortion, homosexualism, and other socially disruptive phenomena. Taking part in it are organizations, experts, social activists, and politicians from more than 80 countries around the world. WCF is not an organization in the usual sense, not a centralized body – rather, it is a massive network movement supported by millions of people across the globe. Its main task is holding large-scale international conferences dedicated to protecting the natural family, parental rights, and the right to life. So far it has organized six such World Congresses of Families. These international events usually witness more than 3000 delegates from all the five continents, including politicians, community leaders, writers, scholars, and lay individuals as well. The 7^th World Congress of Families is to take place in 2013 in Sidney, Australia [3], and the one after that is set to take place in 2014 in Russia.

World Congress of Families is very effective at protecting the family, family values, parental rights, and the right to life at the international level. Much is being done by its partner organizations. This includes winning major domestic and international pro-family court cases, successfully removing anti-family provisions from draft international legislation – and seriously influencing national politics. In particular, then last September the majority of Australian parliamentarians refused to approve same-sex marriages, this was achieved thanks in part to WCF partners’ efforts.

2. Local organization representatives must make their views clearly heard on the international stage by issuing well though-out and well-prepared civil society documents setting forth such views in an educated and competent manner. Examples of such documents include the San Jose Articles convincingly arguing that there is no “right to abortion” in international law; the 2011 St. Petersburg Resolution, supported by hundreds of organizations across Russia and Ukraine expressing their unequivocal protest at the abuse of international mechanisms and setting forth the principles by which the norms of international law can be lawfully interpreted in the interests of the family and the society; and the report on unlawful actions by the UN CRC Committee prepared by our FamilyPolicy.ru Group and available in English.

Growing incrementally, step by step, the body of such works can produce very tangible influence on international political processes. Thanks to these steps we have already successfully stopped some of the dangerous international anti-family initiatives.

3. Attempts at unlawfully exerting outside control on sovereign peoples amounts to ideological and cultural coercion, a kind of peaceful-looking invasion. Its aim is to gradually erode the sovereignty of independent nations, their peoples’ rights to self-determination, self-government by just laws, and domestic values and traditions. This calls for all supporters of the family, family and moral values, and the sanctity of human life to consistently stand up for their countries’ sovereignty. It is not a question of sovereignty narrowly defined as a formal international recognition of an independent state. It is the actual, not the formal right to shape one’s own destiny independently and without unlawful international pressure.

Against this backdrop, faced with the possibility of joining the European Union and therefore virtually abandoning much of its national sovereignty, the people of independent Ukraine have to ask themselves some very important questions. Do the sovereign people of Ukraine need a Union top-heavy with the new breed of apparatchiks complicit in advancing radical feminism and the so-called “sexual minority rights”? Do the sovereign people of Ukraine really want to come under the jurisdiction of the European Parliament with its self-declared intergroup on “LGBT rights” and its human rights resolutions invoking homosexual rights so often one might think homosexualism the new Europe’s most treasured value? And, in the light of all this, isn’t it, perhaps, the Ukraine that should be setting down terms on which it might be willing to join the European Union, and not the other way round? These, I think, are important questions that must be decided by the whole people of Ukraine, and not by members of narrow political elites.

All the three components of protecting the family on the international stage outlined above have essentially one goal: to reclaim the true meaning and purpose of international law. Because, just like any other law, its true purpose is maintaining and building up the society, not undermining and destroying it.

In this connection allow me to quote the international St. Petersburg Resolution:

“We declare and proclaim our strong conviction that all UN human rights treaties must be interpreted in a way favorable to the natural family and natural parental rights. They also must be interpreted as defending the natural right of unborn children to life from the moment of conception.

All interpretations contradicting this approach must be rejected, as contrary to natural human rights, even if given by an authoritative body. If any provision under any international treaty or other international human rights instrument cannot be interpreted in compliance with this principle, such a provision must be amended or such an instrument must be denounced in tote as inhuman.

If any international organization or agency insists on any principle or norm contrary to this approach, this policy should be openly identified by the governments as socially destructive. In such a case, the governments, acting for the good of their peoples and mankind, should either compel such an organization to recognize natural human rights, natural family rights and natural parental rights or to leave such an organization or agency”.

Concluding my address, I would like to firmly state the following: natural family, matrimony, motherhood and fatherhood, and natural parental rights are all of them not the creation of man. They follow from the human nature itself without which we can no longer remain human. The law can only acknowledge this incontestable fact and respectfully accept it; and neither the national legislators nor the people drafting international legal norms have a right to arbitrarily redefine human nature.

Thank you for your attention!

About the Author: Pavel A. Parfentiev is the Managing Director of the FamilyPolicy.ru Advocacy Group and the Chairman of “For Family Rights” NGO (Russia). He’s also the World Congress of Families Ambassador to European Institutions and the WCF Adviser for International Human Rights Law.