FWI president praises Türkiye’s withdrawal from Istanbul Convention

Sharon Slater criticizes sex education programs run by organizations such as UNICEF and United Nations Population Fund

The president of the US-based nonprofit organization Family Watch International (FWI) praised Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's decision in 2021 to withdraw Türkiye from the Istanbul Convention. Sharon Slater, who spoke Thursday at the International Family Forum held in Istanbul, noted that the decision was due to the inclusion of controversial and binding ideological concepts. She criticized sex education programs run by organizations such as UNICEF and the United Nations Population Fund, claiming they are ideological rather than pedagogical. She accused the UN system of providing significant funding to NGOs and digital projects promoting such content. According to Slater, these education models aim to distance young people from their families and traditional values. Jeyran Rahmatullayeva, the head of the Administrative Office of the State Committee for Family, Women and Children Affairs of Azerbaijan, noted that while the digital age has enabled women to participate more actively in education and the workforce, it has also brought negative effects such as rising divorce rates. She said that family structures are also being impacted by global warming and urbanization and that with urban migration, extended families are transforming into nuclear families, with most families now having only one child and only the nuclear unit typically moving from rural to urban areas. Stefano Gennarini, Vice President for Legal Studies at the Center for Family and Human Rights (C-Fam) in the US, argued that US and Western foundations are using terms like “gender equality” and “reproductive health” to harm traditional family values. He said the UN's social policies are increasingly shaped by the political ideologies of Western countries and that many developing nations remain silent due to economic dependencies. Aleksey Kiristaev, a biotechnology expert from Moscow University in Russia, said that Big Pharma is collaborating with the US Congress and military-industrial complex to pursue a global population control agenda. He said children are being encouraged to move away from their biological sex and pushed into expensive hormone treatments.