LGBT parents often suffer particular hardship due to the failure of existing family law and government institutions to recognize the relationships that have been established. The children suffer too. Their rights to love and care are at the mercy of ideological preference and blatant prejudice.

The International Gay and lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) offers this report as a first step toward ending the divide between the promise of human rights in relation to the family, and the particular situations and needs of LGBT people who are or seek to be parents.