Committee on Equality and Non-Discrimination

Rapporteur : Mr Jonas GUNNARSSON, Sweden, SOC

Origin - Reference to committee: Doc. 13956, Reference 4234 of 14 October 2016. 2018 - Fourth part-session

Summary

The right to respect for private and family life is a fundamental right, enshrined in Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. This right is of equal importance in everyone’s lives, yet progress towards achieving equality in this field regardless of sexual orientation is uneven. This poses real and serious problems in ordinary people’s everyday lives. Discrimination unfortunately remains a reality for many rainbow families.

Since the Parliamentary Assembly last examined this issue in 2010, there have been significant developments in European case law, and important advances towards greater equality for rainbow families have been achieved in member States. These developments show that more efforts are however still required from member States in order to achieve equality in the field of private and family life regardless of sexual orientation.

In order to fulfil their responsibility to protect and promote the human rights of all those within their jurisdiction and to eliminate discrimination on all grounds, including sexual orientation, member States should avoid perpetuating discriminatory treatment and should promote activities aimed at eliminating the prejudice in society that enables such discrimination to persist. See the full resolution