IOF has submitted the following statement, joined by organizations around the world, to all UN ambassadors in New York for the 80th anniversary of the creation of the United Nations.
What the World Needs Now: Heed the Calls to Protect Family and Religious Freedom
In Commemoration of United Nations Day 2025
Several days before the United Nations was to mark its 80th anniversary on United Nations Day, October 24, 2025, author and political scientist Ian Bremmer pleaded in his annual State of the World address,
We need a lot more empathy, more leadership. We need more cooperation and trust. Not just from world leaders… I’m actually talking about us, the people in this room. We can’t wait for politicians to act, everyone talking their own book. We can’t rely on markets and everyone selling a product. We can’t count on Washington to lead, or Beijing to step up, or multilateral institutions to fill the gap. We have to invent new communities that are grounded in truth, not spin, that are bolstered by action, not just talk, and cooperation, not division.
His plea comes in the wake of clarion calls by world religious leaders to protect rights the United Nations has recognized as foundational to the flourishing of society, and without which Bremmer’s hope must remain just a hope.
PROTECT AND TREASURE THE FAMILY, urged Pope Francis.
Every threat to the family is a threat to society itself. The future of humanity passes through the family. So protect your families! See in them your country’s greatest treasure and nourish them always.
Besides every nation’s greatest treasure, the family is its very foundation, and has been so since time immemorial. “The family has been the ultimate foundation of every civilization known to history,” wrote historian Will Durant. Its uniquely indispensable role is clear in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which recognizes only one group unit as possessing rights: “The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State” (Article 16(3)).
In other words, the family exists prior to the state and possesses inherent dignity and rights which states are morally bound to respect and protect. Michael Novak stated, “Political and social planning in a wise social order begins with the axiom, ‘What strengthens the family strengthens society.’ The roles of a father and a mother, and of children with respect to them, is the absolutely critical center of social force.” No wonder that in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Member States declared, “The widest possible protection and assistance should be accorded to the family, which is the natural and fundamental group unit of society” (Article 10.1).
DEFEND AND ADVANCE RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, urged President Dallin H. Oaks.
I call for a global effort to defend and advance the religious freedom of all the children of God in every nation of the world.
He also offered suggestions toward achieving that breathtaking goal.
Accept the twin realities that we are all fellow citizens who need each other and that we are all subject to law…. Oppose the use of state- or religion-supported coercion on the sacred subjects of religious choice and activity…. Teach and act to make the beneficial public effects of religious teachings and practices more visible to nonbelievers…. Unite and find common ground for defending and promoting religious liberty.
As with the rights of the family, the right to religious freedom was enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance” (Article 18). The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action reiterated, “The right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion is inalienable and must be universally enjoyed,” and added, “In order to realize equality, development and peace, there is a need to respect these rights and freedoms fully” (paragraph 24).
Thus, to protect religious freedom is to protect society itself. In a statement later quoted by the president of the Human Rights Council, Pope John Paul II declared, “Religious freedom, an essential requirement of the dignity of every person, is a cornerstone of the structure of human rights and for this reason, an irreplaceable factor in the good of individuals and of the whole society.”
As the United Nations proceeds into its next eighty years, we earnestly urge Member States to heed these clarion calls to defend and advance the family and religious freedom as indispensable keys to development, prosperity, and peace.
Respectfully,
International Organization for the Family
United Families International
Center for Family and Human Rights
Universal Peace Federation
Family Policy Institute, South Africa
Latin American Alliance for the Family
Family First, New Zealand
REAL Women of Canada
American Family Advocates
HazteOir, Spain
CitizenGO, Spain
Worldwide Organization for Women
FamilyPolicy.RU Advocacy Group, Russia
Native American Fatherhood & Families Association
NGO Committee on the Family, New York
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