Ms. Sarah Amjad Hussain, Director of the Department of Family, Women, Childhood and Elderly Affairs at the International Islamic Fiqh Academy (IIFA), participated in the 20th session of the Independent Permanent Commission for Human Rights of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which was held at the headquarters of the General Secretariat of the OIC in Jeddah from 24 to 28 Jumada Al-Awwal 1444H corresponding to 18 to 22 December 2022G, in the presence of representatives of member states and observer states in the OIC, including their national human rights institutions, specialists from various relevant international and regional organizations, as well as senior staff of the OIC’s general secretariat and the media.

The session, which was inaugurated by His Excellency Mr. Hussain Ibrahim Taha, Secretary General of the OIC, began with the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the Commission and the Malaysian National Council for Human Rights, in addition to presentations by keynote speakers on the topic “The Right to Family Life…Islamic Perspective and Human Rights Perspective to Address Challenges facing the institution of marriage”.

The agenda of the conference included a number of sessions. The first session was entitled “Efforts and Strategies to Protect the Institution of Marriage and the Family… an Islamic and Institutional Perspective.” The second session was entitled “A Human Rights Approach to Protect the Institution of Marriage and the Family,” while the third session was entitled “The Role of National Institutions and Religious actors in protecting the institution of marriage and the family.”

In her intervention during the first session of the conference, the Director of the Family Affairs Department at the Academy stressed the need to strongly preserve and protect the institution of the family in order to ensure the survival of the human race through reproduction, which is one of the purposes of Shariah, namely the goal of preserving offspring, which falls within the rest of the purposes of preserving the soul, the religion, the mind and the money. She also clarified that none of these purposes can be preserved if offspring are not first preserved through marriage and that any violation or manipulation of the concept of marriage, that sacred contract between a man and a woman in all monotheistic religions, leads to the automatic elimination of the human race. She added that the Academy issued many resolutions and recommendations in which it indicated the importance and necessity of preserving the family institution and caring for the rights of women, children and the elderly, and rejecting all attempts aimed at undermining or harming the family institution in general and the institution of marriage in particular.

Throughout the week, the commission held detailed discussions on all issues on the agenda of the session, including civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights in the member states of the OIC, and human rights violations in Palestine and India-occupied Jammu and Kashmir. The Commission will also hold regular meetings of its four working groups concerned with Palestine, women and children’s rights, Islamophobia and Muslim minorities, and the right to development, where resolutions will be taken on developing a future plan of action for the Commission.