A Quintet of Key Moments in the Attack on the Rights of Women and Girls in the Past Year.
This time last year, groups dedicated to gender equality were steeling themselves against a new Trump administration. Scarcely anyone expected. The sheer number and rapid pace of administrative decrees coming out of the White House were viewed as a deliberate tactic to cause confusion and fear. The tactic proved effective – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as groups rushed to fill the gap left by a major funding freeze. But the situation was about to worsen.
The US administration has been the primary force, aided by relentless activism by far-right organisations exploiting the situation to forge international alliances with sympathetic regimes.
Often termed the anti-gender movement signifies a transnational grouping of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that work to dismantle advances on numerous fronts. This encompasses reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They do this by advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We look at five episodes that impacted the protection, honor, and existence of the female population.
USAID Dismantled
In March, shortly after a major US aid agency is frozen, causing widespread distress, a leading figure in the administration states that the lion's share of the organization's initiatives will be axed. Career diplomats, past leaders and humanitarian and health experts criticize the move, stating that mortality will increase. Human rights advocates say that the dismantling of this institution is not just a financial shortfall, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and family planning and reproductive care. Numerous groups 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 sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with many more millions at risk. Additional key contributing countries announce their own austerity measures. A director of a global justice organization 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 conservative religious groups meet in an upmarket New York hotel 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 celebrate shifts in US policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the global conference with a stark warning that “the venom of male dominance” is returning, after a analysis demonstrates that groups opposing progressive rights are deliberately weakening established norms on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa centered on the traditional family and national sovereignty raises concerns among human rights defenders. In early May, a head of state and partner open a large assembly to push back on what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A few days later, another continental gathering on conservative ethics is held. Both events are attended by leading American and European conservative activists, including heads of influential networks. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to stand up to “radical global social engineering” of global institutions. In June, a global faith group hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in West Africa, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Advocates remark that the extent of foreign involvement has grown significantly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in July plans to dispose of a vast stockpile of birth control held in a European depot. A leading family planning organization states that their destruction will deny countless females from family planning options, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains unresolved as host nation officials are blocking perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reviving the global gag rule, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the ban was reimposed in the first month of the year. The administration also reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in October, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. More details on the policy's widened application are anticipated next year. A leader in global maternal health says widening the scope will have “unimaginable effects”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being negotiated with countries in Africa will become conditional on accepting the broadened restrictions.
