By Noimot OlayiwolaThe Doha International Institute for Family Studies and Development (DIIFSD) is planning to build and co-ordinate from Doha, a network of regional organisations working with focus on Arab families, in a bid to reinforce the essence of family integration within the society.“We have had an initial meeting regarding this move in Turkey last month and the meeting was attended by the former UN special rapporteur on disability Sheikha Hessa bint Khalifa al-Thani and Social Development Centre chairperson Amal al-Mannai, in order to develop a network of individuals and groups that are working on family issues and that include connecting all such groups in Doha to similar institutions globally,” DIIFSD executive director Richard Wilkins told Gulf Timesyesterday.While emphasising the impact of family affinity, especially on children, Wilkins said some 80% of children in Scandinavian countries are born outside wedlock and half of all pregnancies end up being aborted.“Nowadays, we are losing our sense of belonging, which is what families should be all about. It should be about caring and loving as a man and woman are meant to love and care for each other and love their children as well,” he said.However, he maintained that some people didn’t even see the reason for getting married any more saying: “Most couples these days just live together and as a result, more and more children are now born outside of wedlock and more than half of all pregnancies end in abortion and you hear people say what is wrong with that as they see it as being normal,” he added.Wilkins said that when such situations become rampant, it could lead to societies that didn’t value human lives and value sense of belonging to the community.“According to studies, children in those societies are the ones who are really suffering. If you look at outcome for children in Scandinavia today as opposed to 60 years ago when they had 100% literacy, the highest rate of health, lowest rate of suicide, of crime, of drug use. Now they have all these vices at their highest level,” he said. According to the DIIFSD executive director, the end results of high illiteracy is the loss of sense of belonging. “So, what we are trying to do at the DIIFSD is to help develop research that will show the benefits and demonstrate that it is very important to have stable families to help move societies forward,” he said.The institute, which was established in 2005 by HH Sheikha Moza bint Nasser in order to achieve the objectives of International Year of the Family and to promote as well as strengthen the family as the natural and fundamental unit of society, provides a vital interdisciplinary research, policy and community outreach resource in Qatar.It also supports family-friendly plans, policies and programmes across the world, especially in places where family ties are at the weakest.“We are trying to develop a series of key partnerships with important players in various regions like the EU, Scandinavia, sub-Sahara Africa regarding our projects for next year. The goal is to have good reliable partners in all of those regions where we can have a plan of action that moves forward the family agenda each year,” Wilkins said.The institute will soon be launching first edition of its International Journal of Jurisprudence of the Family in Doha.