Press Statement
Paula Schriefer
Head of the U.S. Delegation to the Human Rights Council
On the Joint Statement on the International Year of the Family at the HRC
March 7, 2014
The United States agrees with the sponsors of today’s Human Rights Council joint statement on the occasion of the 20th Anniversary of the International Year of the Family that the family is a fundamental unit of society. The United States was pleased to join consensus on resolutions regarding the family at last fall’s UN General Assembly and at the recent Commission on Social Development in New York.
The United States looks forward to further discussions at the Human Rights Council and other UN fora on all the types of loving families that exist today, be those families headed by one mother and father, a single parent, a same-sex couple, or grandparents, as well as the myriad other family structures which – among other things – provide essential support for raising children. It is essential that UN take into consideration these various forms of the family as we further address human rights and the family throughout UN fora.