Five Defining Landmark Occurrences in the Assault on the Rights of Women and Girls in the Past Year.
In the previous year, women’s rights organisations were bracing themselves for a new Trump administration. Few were prepared for. The flood and velocity of executive orders emanating from the White House were seen as a calculated strategy to induce a state of shock. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as groups rushed to compensate for the loss left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But the situation was about to worsen.
The US administration has been the primary force, complemented by fervent lobbying efforts by far-right organisations exploiting the situation to forge international alliances with like-minded governments.
The movement against gender equality refers to a global network of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as affluent financiers and clans that work to dismantle progress across a wide spectrum of issues. This encompasses reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They achieve this through lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We examine five junctures that affected the welfare, autonomy, and survival of women and girls.
The Dismantling of USAID
In the month of March, shortly after a prominent humanitarian funder is frozen, causing global disruption, a senior US official reveals that over eighty percent of the organization's initiatives will be axed. Career diplomats, former presidents and humanitarian and health experts decry the decision, predicting that mortality will increase. Rights defenders say that the demise of the agency is more than a funding crisis, it is a savage attack on human rights and access to contraception and reproductive health services. A multitude of agencies say females will bear the brunt by diminishing aid, especially in war zones. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with millions more to come. Additional key contributing countries proceed with parallel slashes. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a move to appease a political ally.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In March, several conservative religious groups meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a two-day conference held alongside the annual UN Women gathering. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in buoyant mood as they celebrate shifts in US policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the global conference with a stark warning that “the poison of patriarchy” is resurgent, after a analysis demonstrates that anti-rights actors are systematically eroding established norms on key women’s rights issues around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa focused on the conservative family structures and national independence triggers anxiety among rights advocates. In May, a head of state and partner open a large assembly to combat what they label external influences undermining local norms. A few days later, another continental gathering on traditional morals is held. Both events are attended by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including heads of influential networks. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to stand up to “international liberal agenda” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a family strengthening conference in an African nation, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Advocates remark that the extent of foreign involvement has grown significantly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in midsummer plans to incinerate a vast stockpile of birth control held in a storage facility in Belgium. A global sexual health network states that their destruction will deny countless females from access to birth control, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains at a standstill as the regional government are blocking usable products to be destroyed.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which halts US aid to groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the rule was reinstated in the first month of the year. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. Additional information regarding the expansion of the rule are anticipated next year. A director of a major health partnership says widening the scope will have “unimaginable effects”. Pro-choice activists fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being discussed with African nations will become conditional on accepting the expanded global gag.
