EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The early 21st Century is witnessing an increasing revaluation of the family role in society. From a spiritual perspective, the family was always considered as the basic unit of human kind. The major religious visions of the world emphasized that its moral and emotional weight was decisive for life. In recent years, this fundamental perspective added up to social science research findings that suggest that the family unit also makes valuable contributions in very concrete areas.

Among other aspects, research highlights the family role on educational performance, development of emotional intelligence, ways of thinking, health and crime prevention.

The family is the ambit where the various levels of growth, development, balance, health and fulfillment that individuals may reach are determined. The society and its members play key roles on the conditions of progress and well being under which family units develop.

The deterioration of basic socioeconomic parameters of daily life in large population sectors in the region has a silent influence in the reorganization process of numerous families. A profile is emerging that reflects disorganization on important issues, instability and significant weakening.

Such issues as the increasing number of women-led homes, the reluctance of young men to create a family, births out of wedlock, early maternity, family violence, family inability to provide for a normal childhood, children in/of the street, are part of this weakening scenario. These matters should have a priority consideration in public policies and by the society as a whole, and urgent solutions should be sought for them.

No statement of impotence can be admitted in this connection; Latin America has huge potential resources of economic nature and a history full of values that enable it to face such problems. It also counts at present with a gigantic achievement: the democratization of the region. This challenge should be a priority for democracies that were established in the region with such hard efforts and struggle. This is what a democratic system is expected to do.

Public policies in the region should take due note of the significance of the family roles and act accordingly. Family is continuously referred to in the usual public discourse in Latin America but actually it has no presence in terms of public policies. There are limited efforts to set up organic policies for the protection and strengthening of the family unit, overwhelmed by the progress of poverty and inequality. There are numerous sectoral policies addressing women, children, and youth, but very few attempts to build up a vigorous policy addressing the unit that frames them all and that will have an in-depth influence on the situation of each of them: the family.

Social policies should be strongly focused on this decisive unit. A concrete support to family constitution in the underprivileged sectors is required, as well as a detailed protection of all steps of maternity, the support of families to face the excessive pressure arising from economic problems at critical times in their existence, the eradication of child labor and contribution to child school attendance, development of a supporting service network (day-care centers, assistance to the elderly and disabled, etc.), extension of cultural development opportunities and family recreation. This requires explicit policies, the availability of organic instruments for their implementation, the allocation of resources, and alliances between the public sector and civil society entities that may contribute to such goals.

To strengthen the family implies to improve the human capital of society, the driver of economic growth and social development and the basis for democratic stability; but even beyond that, the ultimate goal should not be the improvement of one means, but of the whole democratic society as the ultimate end. The family is the basic unit for multiple areas of activity but above all it is an end in itself. To strengthen it means to give an effective step towards the development of human potential, to reinforce dignity, to extend opportunities, to enhance actual freedom.