Five Pivotal Events 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 return of Donald Trump to office. Few were prepared for. The flood and velocity of administrative decrees emanating from the White House were interpreted as a deliberate tactic to overwhelm and create panic. In many ways it worked – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as organisations scrambled to plug the hole left by a sudden aid suspension. But the situation was about to worsen.
The US administration has been the key driver, bolstered by vigorous campaigning by religious fundamentalist networks seizing the opportunity to strengthen global ties with sympathetic regimes.
This opposition to progressive rights refers to a global network of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that strive to weaken advances on numerous fronts. These include 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 foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We look at five moments that shaped the security, respect, and well-being of females globally.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In March, six weeks after a prominent humanitarian funder is halted, causing turmoil around the world, a leading figure in the administration confirms that the lion's share of the organization's initiatives will be axed. Career diplomats, former presidents and aid and medical specialists denounce the action, warning that people will die as a result. Activists say that the dismantling of this institution is more than a funding crisis, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Many organisations say the impact on girls and women will be severe 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 millions more to come. Two other major donor nations initiate similar reductions. A head of a worldwide campaign network 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 upmarket New York hotel for a two-day conference held in parallel with the annual UN Women gathering. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in high spirits as they celebrate new Washington directives on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the women’s summit with a grave caution that “the venom of male dominance” is resurgent, after a report shows that anti-rights actors are systematically eroding longstanding consensus on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa themed around the conservative family structures and national independence triggers anxiety among human rights defenders. In early May, a head of state and partner open a major forum to push back on what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A soon after, another regional summit on conservative ethics is held. Both events are attended by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including heads of influential networks. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to push back against “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of international organizations. In June, a global faith group hosts a family strengthening conference in an African nation, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Activists observe that the scale of their presence has grown significantly.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are running out of contraceptives, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in midsummer plans to destroy millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a storage facility in Belgium. A major reproductive health federation states that their incineration will prevent 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 imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “callous and reckless”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains in deadlock as the regional government refuse to permit perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which cuts American funding for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the ban was reimposed in January. The administration also reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. Further specifics about the expansion of the rule are anticipated next year. A director of a major health partnership says widening the scope will have “devastating consequences”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that new US aid packages being negotiated with countries in Africa will become dependent on agreeing to the broadened restrictions.
