Five Defining Landmark Occurrences in the Challenge to the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Past Year.
A year ago, women’s rights organisations were anticipating a second Trump term. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The torrent and swiftness of executive orders emanating from the White House were viewed as a calculated strategy to paralyze through overload. The tactic proved effective – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as networks struggled to address the shortfall left by a freeze on international development funds. But this merely marked the opening act.
The Washington leadership has been the primary force, bolstered by fervent lobbying efforts by far-right organisations exploiting the situation to build worldwide connections with political allies.
The anti-rights movement denotes an international coalition of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as affluent financiers and clans that aim to roll back forward movement on multiple topics. This encompasses access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They do this by influencing policymakers, funding litigation, undermining global initiatives to push for parity, disseminating propaganda, and supporting ideologically-matched groups.
We review five instances that influenced the safety, dignity and lives of women and girls.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In early spring, shortly after a prominent humanitarian funder is its funds are blocked, causing global disruption, a leading figure in the administration reveals that the lion's share of the institution's work will be scrapped. US diplomats, former presidents and humanitarian and health experts decry the decision, predicting that mortality will increase. Human rights advocates say that the dismantling of this institution is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and access to contraception and reproductive health services. A multitude of agencies say females will bear the brunt by diminishing aid, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, evidence indicates how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with many more millions at risk. Two other major donor nations proceed with parallel slashes. A leader of an international advocacy group says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is a move to appease a political ally.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In March, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a two-day conference held in parallel with the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in buoyant mood 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 somber alert that “the venom of male dominance” is returning, after a report shows that anti-rights actors are actively undermining established norms on key women’s rights issues around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the summer, a cluster of meetings in Africa focused on the conservative family structures and national independence raises concerns among rights advocates. In the start of May, a national leader and spouse open a major forum to push back on what they label external influences undermining local norms. A few days later, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are participated in by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to stand up to “international liberal agenda” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a major religious institution hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in an African nation, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the scale of their presence has increased markedly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As health facilities across Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in July plans to incinerate a vast stockpile of birth control held in a storage facility in Belgium. A leading family planning organization states that their incineration will prevent countless females from contraceptive supplies, 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 international emergency medical charity calls it “callous and reckless”. Charities attempt to acquire 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 refuse to permit perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is standard practice for 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 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 broader enforcement are likely forthcoming. A director of a major health partnership says extending the reach will have “devastating consequences”. Pro-choice activists fear that fresh American assistance deals being negotiated with countries in Africa will become conditional on accepting the broadened restrictions.
