United Nations Population Fund Leader Says Family Breakdown is a Triumph for Human Rights [Excerpts]
MEXICO CITY, February 3, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A leader in the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has declared that the breakdown of traditional families, far from being a “crisis,” is actually a triumph for human rights.
Speaking at a colloquium held last month at Colegio Mexico in Mexico City, UNFPA representative Arie Hoekman denounced the idea that high rates of divorce and out-of-wedlock births represent a social crisis, claiming that they represent instead the triumph of “human rights” against “patriarchy.”
"In the eyes of conservative forces, these changes mean that the family is in crisis," he said. "In crisis? More than a crisis, we are in the presence of a weakening of the patriarchal structure, as a result of the disappearance of the economic base that sustains it and because of the rise of new values centered in the recognition of fundamental human rights."
"Day after day, Mexico experiences a process of this diversity and there are those who understand it as a crisis, because they only recognize one type of family," one of the speakers on the panel also told the audience.
The comments followed close on the heels of the World Meeting of Families, which was held in Mexico City in January, and which strongly reaffirmed the importance of the traditional family and its indispensible role in transmitting values to the next generation. It was opened by Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who observed that high rates of divorce and out-of-wedlock births were contributing to the rise of violence and crime in Mexico.
[TBC: “God sets the solitary in families: he brings out those which are bound with chains: but the rebellious dwell in a dry land” (Psalm:68:6God setteth the solitary in families: he bringeth out those which are bound with chains: but the rebellious dwell in a dry land.).]
