Five Landmark Occurrences in the Rollback of the Rights of Women and Girls in the Past Year.
In the previous year, women’s rights organisations were preparing for a new Trump administration. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The sheer number and rapid pace of executive orders emanating from the White House were seen as a premeditated approach to paralyze through overload. In many ways it worked – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as groups rushed to plug the hole left by a sudden aid suspension. But this was only the precursor.
The Trump administration has been the main instigator, complemented by vigorous campaigning by ultra-conservative groups seizing the opportunity to strengthen global ties with like-minded governments.
The anti-rights movement refers to a global network of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as billionaire families and individuals that strive to weaken advances on numerous fronts. This covers abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They do this by advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We examine five episodes that influenced the welfare, autonomy, and survival of the female population.
The Dismantling of USAID
In early spring, six weeks after a key American development organization is its funds are blocked, causing international chaos, a senior US official announces that a vast majority of the organization's initiatives will be axed. US diplomats, former presidents and humanitarian and health experts denounce the action, predicting that lives will be lost. Human rights advocates say that the closure of the organization is not just a financial shortfall, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and family planning and reproductive care. Many organisations say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by waning support, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with millions more to come. Another pair of leading funders proceed with parallel slashes. A director of a global justice organization says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In the same month, several conservative religious groups meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a strategic summit held alongside the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they applaud changes in American foreign policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the gender equality forum with a somber alert that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is resurgent, after a study indicates that opponents of gender equality are actively undermining longstanding consensus on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa themed around the conservative family structures and national independence sparks alarm among rights advocates. In early May, a head of state and partner open a significant conference to push back on what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A shortly thereafter, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are attended by leading American and European conservative activists, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to stand up to “international liberal agenda” of global institutions. In June, a global faith group hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in the region, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Activists observe that the extent of foreign involvement has increased markedly.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As health facilities across Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in midsummer plans to incinerate a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a European depot. A leading family planning organization states that their destruction will deny millions of women and girls from access to birth control, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “heartless and dangerous”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains in deadlock as the regional government will not allow perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which halts US aid to groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the ban was reimposed 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 sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. Further specifics about the policy's widened application are anticipated next year. A director of a major health partnership says widening the scope will have “catastrophic impacts”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being discussed with African nations will become conditional on accepting the expanded global gag.
