Five Significant Developments in the Assault on the Rights of Women and Girls in This Past Year.
Twelve months prior, women’s rights organisations were bracing themselves for a Trump presidency sequel. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The torrent and swiftness of presidential directives coming out of the White House were interpreted as a calculated strategy to cause confusion and fear. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as networks struggled to address the shortfall left by a sudden aid suspension. But this merely marked the opening act.
The Trump administration has been the key driver, aided by intense advocacy work by religious fundamentalist networks using the moment to build worldwide connections with political allies.
This opposition to progressive rights denotes an international coalition of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that aim to roll back advances on numerous fronts. This covers pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They achieve this through advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We look at five moments that impacted the protection, honor, and existence of women and girls.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In early spring, shortly after a key American development organization is its funds are blocked, causing global disruption, a leading figure in the administration states that the lion's share of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. Career diplomats, ex-presidents and aid and medical specialists denounce the action, stating that lives will be lost. Activists say that the demise of the agency is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a savage attack on human rights and access to contraception and reproductive health services. A multitude of agencies say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by reduced funding, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, statistics reveal 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. Additional key contributing countries follow with their own cuts. A director of a global justice organization says a choice to reduce international development funding is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In the same month, several Christian-right organisations meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a two-day conference held alongside the international conference on women's rights. 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 gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the global conference with a grave caution that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is returning, after a report shows that opponents of gender equality are systematically eroding established norms on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the summer, a series of conferences in Africa centered on the conventional household and state autonomy triggers anxiety among rights advocates. In early May, a national leader and spouse open a large assembly to combat what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A shortly thereafter, another regional summit on family values is held. Both events are graced by leading American and European conservative activists, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker calls on African NGOs to stand up to “radical global social engineering” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a prominent church hosts a event focused on reinforcing families 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 increased markedly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in July plans to destroy a vast stockpile of birth control held in a storage facility in Belgium. A global sexual health network 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 forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains in deadlock as local authorities refuse to permit perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
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 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 signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to broaden the scope of the policy to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. 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 upcoming Washington funding agreements being negotiated with countries in Africa will become conditional on accepting the expanded global gag.
