Three Years of Blogging, a
Lifetime of Affection:
The Right to Family as a Place of Belonging
By Joana Capaz
Coelho
Today, this blog turns three — on my Mother's birthday. Three years of writing, sharing, and reflecting. Of carefully chosen, hesitant, heartfelt words. Three years of trying to reconcile what drives me in Law with what moves me in life.
This text is, therefore, both a celebration and a tribute. A celebration of
this space that keeps growing with me — and a tribute to my Mother. Speaking
about her is difficult without my voice breaking. Perhaps because it was
through her that I first understood — without yet knowing — what the Right to
Family means. And I don’t mean the cold letter of the law, but the lived
reality of having someone who cares, who welcomes, who stays.
Over
these three years, I have written about human rights, health, gender equality,
and solidarity. But I always return to the same root: the right to have
someone. To have someone who supports us, listens to us, calls us by our name.
I always return to the Right to Family — a right that is more than biology,
more than bureaucracy, more than any official document. The Right to Family is
the right to belong, to care, and to be cared for.
This
right is not merely an ideal: it is enshrined in human rights
instruments. The Universal Declaration of Human
Rights (UDHR), in Article 16(3), states that: “The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is
entitled to protection by society and the State”[1].
Likewise, the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), in Article 8,
establishes the right to respect for private and family life, imposing not only
a duty on States to abstain from arbitrary interference, but also positive
obligations to protect family life[2]. In
Portugal, the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic (CRP) identifies family
protection as a fundamental task of the State (Article 67), recognising the
family’s structuring role in social organisation[3]. The family — in all its diverse forms — is
understood as a space for personal fulfilment, solidarity, and affection:
values the law must safeguard.
This
recognition of the right to family is far from isolated. The International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights (ICCPR) (Article 23)[4], the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)
(Articles 9 and 16)[5],
and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (CFREU) (Articles 7
and 33)[6] all
affirm the family as an essential space of protection, affection, and
stability. International law has increasingly consolidated the idea that
family — in all its forms — deserves effective protection.
Still,
the way Law recognises and regulates family does not always reflect the
diversity and complexity of real family experiences. The challenge remains: to
ensure that legal protection goes beyond an abstract notion of “family” and
materialises in concrete measures that uphold the dignity and well-being of all
individuals.
My mother
is gone. But she left me with the certainty that love is also structure. It is
also norm. It is also resistance. From that certainty — learned through her
gestures, her example, her presence — I understand more deeply today what is
truly at stake when we speak of the Right to Family. I speak of all that the
law has yet to do to ensure that no one is deprived of loving, of caring, and
of being cared for. I speak of a legal system that recognises the centrality of
affection, that values human relationships, that protects vulnerability and
celebrates diversity.
As Pope Francis so beautifully said, “The family is the place of encounter, of
sharing, of going forth from ourselves in order to welcome others and stand
beside them. The family is the first place where we learn to love. We must
never forget that the family is the first place where we learn to love” (homily
of June 25, 2022)[7]. In that sentence lies much of what I write
here: the right to family is not merely a legal right — it is, above all, a
lived right. A right to presence, to care, to the kind of love that grounds and
transforms us.
My Mother
was my first place of belonging. But she did not walk that path alone with me.
My Father — a steady and loving presence — has always been my greatest example
and safe harbour. From him I learned that caring also means listening, and that
love can be the quiet support that sustains. My siblings, Filipa and Martim,
are an extension of my foundation — companions in life, in struggle, and in
memory. We are made of the same affections, the same language of care. And on
the hardest days, they remind me of who I am and where I come from.
I also
carry with me — in my blood, in my memory, in my gestures — the strength of my
family, who helped me grow and resist, who taught me to care, to fight, and to
remain. May others find, as I did, that place of belonging that the Law must
protect.
[1] UDHR;
https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights
(consulted at: 16/06/2025).
[2] ECHR: https://www.echr.coe.int/documents/d/echr/convention_ENG
(consulted at: 16/06/2025).
[3] CRP: https://diariodarepublica.pt/dr/legislacao-consolidada/decreto-aprovacao-constituicao/1976-34520775
(consulted at: 16/06/2025).
[4] ICCPR: https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-covenant-civil-and-political-rights (consulted at: 16/06/2025).
[5] CRC: https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/convention-rights-child (consulted at: 16/06/2025).
[6] CFREU: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/charter/pdf/text_en.pdf (consulted at: 16/06/2025).
[7]cfr.
https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/homilies/2022/documents/20220625-omelia-famiglie.html (consulted at: 16/06/2025).
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