Five Defining Landmark Occurrences in the Rollback of the Rights of Women and Girls in This Past Year.
This time last year, feminist advocacy groups were anticipating a return of Donald Trump to office. Few were prepared for. The torrent and swiftness of administrative decrees originating in the White House were seen as a calculated strategy to induce a state of shock. In many ways it worked – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as agencies hastened to compensate for the loss left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But this merely marked the opening act.
The US administration has been the central catalyst, bolstered by intense advocacy work by ultra-conservative groups using the moment to forge international alliances with sympathetic regimes.
This opposition to progressive rights denotes an international coalition of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as billionaire families and individuals that strive to weaken gains in a variety of areas. Areas targeted involve abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They accomplish their goals by pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We analyze five instances that shaped the security, respect, and well-being of the female population.
USAID Dismantled
In the month of March, six weeks after a prominent humanitarian funder is frozen, causing widespread distress, a senior US official confirms that over eighty percent of the institution's work will be scrapped. American foreign service officers, ex-presidents and humanitarian and health experts denounce the action, predicting that people will die as a result. Human rights advocates say that the closure of the organization is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Numerous groups say females will bear the brunt by diminishing aid, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, evidence indicates how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with many more millions at risk. Additional key contributing countries initiate similar reductions. A director of a global justice organization says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a move to appease a political ally.
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 biannual gathering held in parallel with 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 buoyant mood as they applaud shifts in US policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the women’s summit with a stark warning that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is resurgent, after a report shows that groups opposing progressive rights are deliberately weakening longstanding consensus on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the summer, a cluster of meetings in Africa centered on the traditional family and national sovereignty sparks alarm among rights advocates. In May, a head of state and partner open a major forum to resist what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A shortly thereafter, another Pan-African conference on family values is held. Both events are attended by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker urges African NGOs to push back against “radical global social engineering” of global institutions. In June, a global faith group hosts a family strengthening conference in an African nation, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Activists observe that the level of external participation has expanded considerably.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As health facilities across Africa report they are running out of contraceptives, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in July plans to dispose of millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a storage facility in Belgium. A leading family planning organization states that their incineration will prevent a huge female population from contraceptive supplies, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “heartless and dangerous”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains at a standstill as local authorities are blocking the destruction of viable medicines.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
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 the autumn, the US announces it intends to broaden the scope of the policy to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. More details on the broader enforcement are likely forthcoming. A director of a major health partnership says extending the reach will have “devastating consequences”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being negotiated with countries in Africa will become dependent on agreeing to the new, wider policy.
