World Congress of Families Reacts to UNFPA Leader Who Says Family Breakdown is a...

World Congress of Families Reacts to UNFPA Leader Who Says Family Breakdown is
a 'Triumph' for 'Human Rights'

WASHINGTON, Feb. 27 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In response to a leader of the
United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) who declared that family breakdown is a
triumph for human rights, World Congress of Families Managing Director Larry
Jacobs said he was only surprised that UNFPA is now willing to admit what has
always been part of its agenda.

At a recent colloquium in Mexico City, Arie Hoekman, a UNFPA representative
from the Netherlands, told participants that high rates of divorce and
out-of-wedlock births represent the triumph of "human rights" over
"patriarchy."

Jacobs stated, "Ironically, the UNFPA ignores international law and their own
UN declaration on the basic human rights of children and the natural family as
outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Section 16 of
the United Nations UDHR adopted in 1948 states that, 'the family is the
natural fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by
society and the state.' Furthermore, UDHR states, '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.'"

Jacobs charged: "Deconstructing the natural family has always been high on the
agenda of groups like UNFPA. Ignoring international and domestic laws, they
pursue this goal relentlessly through funding and promoting abortion,
contraception and coercive population control - such as China's
one-children-per-family policy.

Jacobs continued: "There are reams of data showing that children from broken
homes, either through divorce or failure to form families, have much higher
levels of drug and alcohol abuse, crime and mental illness than their
counterparts from intact families. But, perhaps Hoekman thinks these social
pathologies also represent the triumph of human rights over patriarchy."

Jacobs concluded: "If Hoekman thinks fatherless families are an advance for
human rights, he should spend time in America's inner cities, where they are
the norm and life is exceedingly dangerous." Jacobs also noted that unattached
males in their teens and twenties drive the crime problem in most developed
nations.

Even U.S. President Barack Obama recognizes the importance of two married
parents at home. As he stated during his speech on Father's Day, "We...need
families to raise our children. We need fathers to realize that
responsibility does not end at conception. We need them to realize that what
makes you a man is not the ability to have a child - it's the courage to raise
one."

Marriage, the natural family, the sanctity of human life and the consequences
of population control all will be major topics of discussion at World Congress
of Families V in Amsterdam, August 10-12.

For more information on World Congress of Families, visit
www.worldcongress.org or www.worldcongress.nl. To register for World Congress
of Families V go to: www.worldcongress.org/WCF5/wcf5.reg.mem.htm. To schedule
and interview with World Congress of Families Managing Director, Larry Jacobs,
contact Communications Director, Don Feder, 508-405-1337 or dfeder@rcn.com.

The World Congress of Families (WCF) is an international network of pro-family
organizations, scholars, leaders and people of goodwill from more than 60
countries that seeks to restore the natural family as the fundamental social
unit and the 'seedbed' of civil society. The WCF was founded in 1997 by Allan
Carlson and is a project of The Howard Center for Family, Religion & Society
in Rockford, Illinois (www.profam.org). To date, there have been four World
Congresses of Families - Prague (1997), Geneva (1999), Mexico City (2004) and
Warsaw, Poland (2007). A fifth World Congress of Families will be held in
Amsterdam, The Netherlands, August 10-12, 2009.

SOURCE World Congress of Families

Don Feder of the World Congress of Families, +1-508-405-1337, dfeder@rcn.com