The United States Department of State announced that its official delegation to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women will include representatives of the Heritage Foundation and the Center for Family and Human Rights (C-FAM), both of which are known as opponents of LGBT+ rights and of the UN human rights framework. C-FAM is also categorized as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
OutRight Action International, an Out Leadership partner organization, forcefully criticized the decision. Its Executive Director Jessica Stern said: “Fundamentalist notions about how women and girls should behave should never be the basis of advising or negotiating US foreign policy…. It is also a bad sign that two organizations that have tried to delegitimize the United Nations and human rights internationally now sit on the official US delegation.”
The Heritage Foundation has called for cuts to funding for programs to respond to and prevent violence against women, arguing that they represent “a misuse of federal resources and a distraction from concerns that are truly the province of the federal government.”