A Quintet of Key Moments in the Attack on the Rights of Females in This Past Year.
This time last year, feminist advocacy groups were steeling themselves against a Trump presidency sequel. Few were prepared for. The sheer number and rapid pace of administrative decrees originating in the White House were regarded as a premeditated approach to overwhelm and create panic. The tactic proved effective – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as networks struggled to address the shortfall left by a major funding freeze. But this was only the precursor.
The American government has been the main instigator, complemented by relentless activism by religious fundamentalist networks seizing the opportunity to solidify transnational relationships with sympathetic regimes.
The anti-rights movement refers to a global network of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as affluent financiers and clans that aim to roll back advances on numerous fronts. This encompasses reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
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 impacted the security, respect, and well-being of women and girls.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In the month of March, a month and a half following a prominent humanitarian funder is suspended, causing turmoil around the world, a leading figure in the administration states that nearly all of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. Career diplomats, former presidents and aid and medical specialists decry the decision, stating that fatalities will ensue. Activists say that the demise of the agency 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 diminishing aid, especially in war zones. As the year ends, statistics reveal how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with millions more to come. 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 an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
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 biannual gathering held concurrently with the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they applaud changes in American foreign policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the global conference with a grave caution that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is back, after a analysis demonstrates that opponents of gender equality are deliberately weakening established norms on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa centered on the conservative family structures and national independence sparks alarm among equality campaigners. In May, a head of state and partner open a large assembly to resist what they label external influences undermining local norms. A soon after, another Pan-African conference on traditional morals is held. Both events are attended by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including heads of influential networks. One speaker calls on African NGOs to push back against “radical global social engineering” of global institutions. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in an African nation, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Campaigners note that the level of external participation has expanded considerably.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in midsummer plans to dispose of a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a storage facility in Belgium. A major reproductive health federation states that their incineration will prevent countless females from family planning options, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains unresolved as the regional government are blocking perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which halts US aid to groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the ban was reimposed in the first month of the year. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. 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 cover diversity programmes. More details on the expansion of the rule are likely forthcoming. A director of a major health partnership says extending the reach will have “catastrophic impacts”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that new US aid packages being discussed with African nations will become contingent upon adopting the expanded global gag.
