A Quintet of Key Moments in the Assault on the Rights of Women and Girls in This Past Year.
Twelve months prior, groups dedicated to gender equality were bracing themselves for a second Trump term. Hardly anyone anticipated. The flood and velocity of executive orders coming out of the White House were viewed as a calculated strategy to paralyze through overload. This strategy had its intended impact – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as agencies hastened to plug the hole left by a major funding freeze. But that was just the beginning.
The Trump administration has been the main instigator, bolstered by fervent lobbying efforts by deeply conservative factions seizing the opportunity to build worldwide connections with like-minded governments.
The anti-rights movement describes a worldwide alliance of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as billionaire families and individuals that seek to undermine gains in a variety of areas. This covers reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They pursue this agenda via influencing policymakers, funding litigation, undermining global initiatives to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We look at five instances that impacted the protection, honor, and existence of females globally.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In early spring, shortly after a key American development organization is its funds are blocked, causing turmoil around the world, a senior US official states that a vast majority of the body's projects will be terminated. Career diplomats, past leaders and relief and public health authorities denounce the action, cautioning that fatalities will ensue. Human rights advocates say that the demise of the agency is not just a financial shortfall, it is a savage attack on human rights and birth control and maternal healthcare. A multitude of agencies say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by waning support, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, evidence indicates how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with many more millions at risk. Two other major donor nations announce their own austerity measures. A leader of an international advocacy group says a choice to reduce international development funding is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In the same month, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a biannual gathering held in parallel with the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in high spirits as they welcome changes in American foreign policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the women’s summit with a stark warning that “the venom of male dominance” is back, after a report shows that groups opposing progressive rights are actively undermining longstanding consensus on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa focused on the conventional household and state autonomy raises concerns among equality campaigners. In early May, a head of state and partner open a large assembly to push back on what they label external influences undermining local norms. A few days later, another continental gathering on family values is held. Both events are participated in by leading American and European conservative activists, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to stand up to “radical global social engineering” of international organizations. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in West Africa, an event that health activists say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Campaigners note that the scale of their presence has grown significantly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are facing shortages of birth control, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in midsummer plans to destroy a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a warehouse in Europe. A global sexual health network states that their elimination will deprive countless females from access to birth control, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “heartless and dangerous”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains at a standstill as host nation officials will not allow perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reviving the global gag rule, which cuts American funding for 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 reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in October, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. More details on the policy's widened application are likely forthcoming. A leader in global maternal health says extending the reach will have “catastrophic impacts”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that fresh American assistance deals being negotiated with countries in Africa will become conditional on accepting the expanded global gag.
