Five Defining Crucial Incidents in the Rollback of the Rights of Women and Girls in This Past Year.
Twelve months prior, organisations advocating for women's rights were preparing for a return of Donald Trump to office. Scarcely anyone expected. The torrent and swiftness of presidential directives emanating from the White House were seen as a deliberate tactic to overwhelm and create panic. This strategy had its intended impact – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as networks struggled to address the shortfall left by a sudden aid suspension. But this was only the precursor.
The Washington leadership has been the main instigator, aided by intense advocacy work by ultra-conservative groups seizing the opportunity to strengthen global ties with political allies.
This opposition to progressive rights signifies a transnational grouping of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as affluent financiers and clans that work to dismantle advances on numerous fronts. These include abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They pursue this agenda via advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to push for parity, disseminating propaganda, and supporting ideologically-matched groups.
We analyze five moments that impacted the security, respect, and well-being of females globally.
The Demise of a Major Aid Agency
In the month of March, a month and a half following a major US aid agency is halted, causing turmoil around the world, a leading figure in the administration states that over eighty percent of the body's projects will be terminated. Career diplomats, former presidents and humanitarian and health experts condemn the news, predicting that lives will be lost. Activists say that the dismantling of this institution is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and birth control and maternal healthcare. Many organisations say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by waning support, especially in war zones. As the year ends, reports confirm how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Two other major donor nations follow with their own cuts. A leader of an international advocacy group says a choice to reduce international development funding is a move to appease a political ally.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In the same month, several Christian-right organisations meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a two-day conference held in parallel with the international conference on women's rights. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in high spirits as they applaud changes in American foreign policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the gender equality forum with a stark warning that “the venom of male dominance” is back, after a analysis demonstrates that opponents of gender equality are actively undermining historic agreements 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 conservative family structures and national independence triggers anxiety among human rights defenders. In early May, a president and first lady open a significant conference to combat what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A soon after, another regional summit on conservative ethics is held. Both events are graced by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker urges African NGOs to stand up to “international liberal agenda” of global institutions. In the following month, a prominent church hosts a family strengthening conference in an African nation, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Advocates remark that the level of external participation has grown significantly.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As health facilities across Africa report they are running out of contraceptives, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in midsummer plans to dispose of a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a warehouse in Europe. A leading family planning organization 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 imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A renowned doctors' group 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 local authorities are blocking usable products to be destroyed.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Reviving the global gag rule, which halts US aid to groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the rule was reinstated in January. 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. Additional information regarding the broader enforcement are likely forthcoming. A director of a major health partnership says extending the reach will have “unimaginable effects”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that new US aid packages being arranged with states on the continent will become dependent on agreeing to the expanded global gag.
