Jimin’s experience at Geneva UN, Monday 15 Sept 2014:Title: HRC Panel on the protection of the family and its members:'Today, there was an important panel on the “Protection of the Family” at Human Rights Council room. Delegates from each country and NGOs gave examples and their opinions on how we can protect the family and why it is needed. They commonly mentioned that the family is the natural and fundamental unit of the society. However, the way they regard and define the family was all different. For example, Chile, Slovenia, Austria, Croatia, EU, etc support all forms of family, which include the same-sex partnered family whereas Russia federation pursues preservation of the traditional family value (which means the marriage between a man and a woman). UN’s intent to protect the family is important and valuable but there can still remain a dispute over this issue because the opinions and from each nation and their definition to the family differ.USA mentioned an interesting point that the freedom from violence is the cornerstone for establishing the well-protected family. The violence often occurs especially against women and children (ex. Sexual abuse, FGM, rape, early child forced marriage). Costa Rica emphasized that the state should provide therapy to individuals under domestic violence and also that they should conduct a periodic evaluation mechanism. There are so many different forms of family: single, joined, rainbow, intergeneration, etc. and there are so many different reasons why the families break down and are not stable. I think it is important to look at all different situations and examples and make an effort to provide an adequate solution to each different case because discussing over the issue all combined with different reasons and causes will only bring a confusion and chaos. Besides attending the conferences and events, I am also making a short documentary with Je-ok. We are interviewing representatives of governments and NGOs on ‘what the government can do to protect the family?’ and ‘what the civil society can do to influence the government to protect the family?’ Here I post two pictures of the interviewees from today!Jimin Park'