A Quintet of Landmark Occurrences in the Rollback of the Rights of Women and Girls in This Past Year.
This time last year, groups dedicated to gender equality were anticipating a second Trump term. Scarcely anyone expected. The torrent and swiftness of White House mandates originating in the White House were seen as a deliberate tactic to overwhelm and create panic. In many ways it worked – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as networks struggled to compensate for the loss left by a freeze on international development funds. But the situation was about to worsen.
The Trump administration has been the central catalyst, supported by intense advocacy work by far-right organisations seizing the opportunity to build worldwide connections with sympathetic regimes.
The movement against gender equality describes a worldwide alliance of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that strive to weaken gains in a variety of areas. Areas targeted involve abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They do this by advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We review five instances that impacted the protection, honor, and existence of women and girls.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In the month of March, a month and a half following a key American development organization is halted, causing global disruption, a leading figure in the administration reveals that the lion's share of the body's projects will be terminated. Career diplomats, ex-presidents and humanitarian and health experts denounce the action, warning that people will die as a result. Activists say that the dismantling of this institution is not just a financial shortfall, it is a savage attack on human rights and family planning and reproductive care. A multitude of agencies say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by shrinking assistance, especially in war zones. As the year ends, evidence indicates how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Additional key contributing countries initiate similar reductions. A director of a global justice organization says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In March, several Christian-right organisations meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a two-day conference held alongside the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they celebrate changes in American foreign policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the global conference with a somber alert that “the venom of male dominance” is returning, after a report shows that opponents of gender equality are deliberately weakening established norms on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa focused on the traditional family and national sovereignty raises concerns among human rights defenders. In the start of May, a head of state and partner open a major forum to combat what they label external influences undermining local norms. A few days later, another continental gathering on traditional morals is held. Both events are graced by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker calls on African NGOs to stand up to “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of multilateral bodies. In June, a global faith group hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in an African nation, an event that health activists say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Activists observe that the level of external participation has grown significantly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As health facilities across Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in July plans to incinerate millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a storage facility in Belgium. A leading family planning organization states that their elimination will deprive a huge female population from contraceptive supplies, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains in deadlock as host nation officials will not allow the destruction of viable medicines.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which halts US aid to groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the ban was reimposed in January. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in October, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include national governments and international bodies 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 broadening the policy will have “devastating consequences”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being arranged with states on the continent will become conditional on accepting the expanded global gag.
