Christians from around the world have gathered for the opening of the fifth World Congress of Families in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, on Monday.
Scores of Christian leaders from more than 50 countries are participating. Organisers say the response to the Congress has been "overwhelming".
In the run up to the event Larry Jacobs, Managing Director of the World Congress of Families, commented: " Delegates will be coming from 11 African states, and from as far away as Venezuela, South Africa, Moldova, Pakistan and Australia.
“In terms of nations represented, this will truly be a World Congress of Families.”
Pro-family leaders, activists, scholars and officials from over 50 countries on five continents have gathered for the conference, which ends on Wednesday. The meeting will discuss a range of issues affecting family life, including abortion, marriage, pornography and the exploitation of women and children.
There has also been some opposition to the conference, however, with an anti-family group in the Netherlands, the Autonomous Feminist Action (AFA), reportedly mobilising against the Congress in the last few months. It is calling upon its supporters to stop the Congress, which it claims is against the “right of persons”.
An article posted on the IndyMedia Netherlands website by the AFA called the World Congress of Families a group of “fundamentalistic Christians” who “will plead for going back to the Christian traditions of traditional relationship between man and woman; whom it claims is against the right of persons, how they want to form and live their lives”.
The AFA characterised the Congress as “anti-feminist, anti-choice, homophobic and against divorce”.
However, Jacobs responded: “Clearly, the social left is terrified of the Congress bringing a pro-family message to what it considers its turf.”
The World Congress of Families was founded in 1997 by Allan Carlson and is a project of The Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society in Rockford in the US.
