A/HRC/24/22 that “cultural rights are pivotal to the recognition and respect of human dignity” but not all cultural practices can be considered as protected in international human rights law, and cultural rights may be subject to limitations in certain circumstances 1 as authorities may misuse their power to define the community’s traditional values in order to maintain the status quo. The contribution noted that cultural norms, their outcomes, acceptance and legitimacy must be questioned in this context. 43. Arc International drew attention to its concerns about traditional values which could perpetuate widespread practices, traditions and patriarchal attitudes involving violence or coercion against women, such as family violence and abuse, forced marriage, dowry deaths, acid attacks and female circumcision as stated in general recommendation No. 19 (1992) on violence against women of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. The Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, had suggested guidelines to address the issue of culture and violence against women, including addressing factors that underlay and reinforced harmful cultural paradigms that subordinated women and recognizing that the protection of rights needed the transformation of cultural norms and attitudes. 44. Asociación de Familias Numerosas, Guatemala, was of the view that traditional values were common to all mankind and should be protected as part of human rights. Reference was made to the fundamental role of the family founded on the union between man and woman; traditional values for peaceful coexistence, and the importance of safeguarding the right to life. History had shown that the progress or decline of cultures was due primarily to the survival of traditional values. The defence of all human life, and the family as the source of traditional values and the foundation of society, was the first and most fundamental human right, and States must work to strengthen the family as society would not exist without the family. Traditional values were not negotiable and were important to the promotion of human rights, the protection of marriage and the defence of life from conception to natural death. 45. Association Points-Cœur stated that respect for human dignity must always be considered as the highest goal and, while traditional values could and should contribute as in the following examples, they should never be invoked as ends in themselves but for the ends of human dignity. 46. Exemplifying dignity and solidarity, reference was made to a village called La Fazenda do Natal in Brazil where volunteers lived, for example, with mothers living in extreme poverty, street children or people with physical and mental disabilities. Those mothers were offered a possibility to live away from poverty, drugs and violence and enhance their ability to make decisions and take action to improve their lives. Responsibility was strengthened as people were not assisted, but fully participated in the life of La Fazenda. Solidarity was also highlighted through the project “Economy of the Communion” launched by the Catholic Focolare movement to eradicate poverty worldwide. Participants in the project – small and medium-sized enterprises – agreed to reinvest in the business to ensure its sustainability and employment opportunities, in community projects by and for people experiencing poverty, and in training projects to guide economic behaviour towards a solidarity economy. 47. With respect to the right to life and human dignity commencing at conception, the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, United States, stated that prohibitions on abortion at all stages of gestation should be encouraged. The key role of the family, composed of a mother and a father, was found in the Universal Declaration of Human 1 10 Statement made to the fourteenth session of the Human Rights Council.