A Quintet of Significant Developments in the Challenge to the Rights of Women and Girls in This Past Year.
Twelve months prior, organisations advocating for women's rights were anticipating a Trump presidency sequel. Scarcely anyone expected. The sheer number and rapid pace of administrative decrees issued from the White House were interpreted as a premeditated approach to paralyze through overload. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as organisations scrambled to plug the hole left by a freeze on international development funds. But this merely marked the opening act.
The Trump administration has been the central catalyst, supported by vigorous campaigning by deeply conservative factions capitalizing on the climate to forge international alliances with like-minded governments.
This opposition to progressive rights signifies a transnational grouping of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as affluent financiers and clans that seek to undermine gains in a variety of areas. This covers abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They accomplish their goals by advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We examine five junctures that affected the welfare, autonomy, and survival of the female population.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In early spring, shortly after a prominent humanitarian funder is suspended, causing widespread distress, a top American diplomat confirms that a vast majority of the organization's initiatives will be axed. Career diplomats, ex-presidents and relief and public health authorities criticize the move, stating that people will die as a result. Rights defenders say that the closure of the organization is not just a financial shortfall, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Many organisations say females will bear the brunt by diminishing aid, especially in war zones. As the year ends, reports confirm how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with many more millions at risk. Another pair of leading funders initiate similar reductions. A leader of an international advocacy group says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In March, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a biannual gathering held concurrently with the annual UN Women gathering. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in high spirits as they welcome changes in American foreign policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the global conference with a somber alert that “the poison of patriarchy” is resurgent, after a report shows that groups opposing progressive rights are deliberately weakening longstanding consensus on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa themed around the traditional family and national sovereignty sparks alarm among equality campaigners. In early May, a head of state and partner open a major forum to combat what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A few days later, another continental gathering on family values is held. Both events are attended by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including heads of influential networks. One speaker urges African NGOs to push back against “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of international organizations. In June, a major religious institution hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in West Africa, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Activists observe that the extent of foreign involvement has expanded considerably.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are running out of contraceptives, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in July plans to destroy a vast stockpile of birth control held in a European depot. A major reproductive health federation states that their incineration will prevent countless females from access to birth control, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. 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 are blocking the destruction of viable medicines.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which halts US aid to groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the policy was restored 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 governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Further specifics about the expansion of the rule are anticipated next year. A leader in global maternal health says broadening the policy will have “catastrophic impacts”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that fresh American assistance deals being negotiated with countries in Africa will become contingent upon adopting the expanded global gag.
