Five Critical Pivotal Events in the Attack on the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Past Year.
This time last year, organisations advocating for women's rights were anticipating a return of Donald Trump to office. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The sheer number and rapid pace of executive orders emanating from the White House were regarded as a premeditated approach to overwhelm and create panic. The tactic proved effective – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as organisations scrambled to address the shortfall left by a major funding freeze. But this was only the precursor.
The Trump administration has been the main instigator, complemented by fervent lobbying efforts by ultra-conservative groups seizing the opportunity to solidify transnational relationships with political allies.
The anti-rights movement denotes an international coalition of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that work to dismantle progress across a wide spectrum of issues. These include access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They do this by lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to push for parity, disseminating propaganda, and supporting ideologically-matched groups.
We review five episodes that impacted the protection, honor, and existence of the female population.
USAID Dismantled
In March, six weeks after a key American development organization is halted, causing turmoil around the world, a senior US official reveals that a vast majority of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. Career diplomats, ex-presidents and relief and public health authorities criticize the move, warning that lives will be lost. Human rights advocates say that the closure of the organization is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a savage attack on human rights and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Numerous groups say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by diminishing aid, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, data shows how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Another pair of leading funders initiate similar reductions. A director of a global justice organization says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In March, several conservative religious groups meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a two-day conference held alongside the international conference on women's rights. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they welcome shifts in US policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the global conference with a grave caution that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is resurgent, after a report shows that anti-rights actors are actively undermining historic agreements on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the warmer months, a series of conferences in Africa centered on the conventional household and state autonomy sparks alarm among equality campaigners. In May, a head of state and partner open a major forum to push back on what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A few days later, another Pan-African conference on traditional morals is held. Both events are attended by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker calls on African NGOs to resist “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of international organizations. In the following month, a prominent church hosts a family strengthening conference in West Africa, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the level of external participation has expanded considerably.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in midsummer plans to destroy a vast stockpile of birth control held in a European depot. A major reproductive health federation states that their elimination will deprive countless females from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization 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 unresolved as the regional government will not allow usable products to be destroyed.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on 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 signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in October, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. More details on the expansion of the rule are anticipated next year. A expert in child welfare says widening the scope will have “devastating consequences”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that new US aid packages being negotiated with countries in Africa will become dependent on agreeing to the expanded global gag.
