Five Major Crucial Incidents in the Assault on the Rights of Women and Girls in the Past Year.
Twelve months prior, groups dedicated to gender equality were anticipating a new Trump administration. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The sheer number and rapid pace of administrative decrees issued from the White House were interpreted as a intentional maneuver to paralyze through overload. The tactic proved effective – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as organisations scrambled to fill the gap left by a freeze on international development funds. But this was only the precursor.
The American government has been the primary force, aided by vigorous campaigning by deeply conservative factions seizing the opportunity to build worldwide connections with ideological partners.
The anti-rights movement describes a worldwide alliance of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that work to dismantle advances on numerous fronts. Areas targeted involve access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They pursue this agenda via pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We review five episodes that shaped the protection, honor, and existence of the female population.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In the month of March, shortly after a key American development organization is halted, causing global disruption, a leading figure in the administration states that over eighty percent of the institution's work will be scrapped. American foreign service officers, ex-presidents and relief and public health authorities condemn the news, predicting that fatalities will ensue. Activists say that the demise of the agency is more than a funding crisis, it is a savage attack on human rights and family planning and reproductive care. Numerous groups say the impact on girls and women will be severe by shrinking assistance, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, data shows how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Another pair of leading funders follow with their own cuts. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a choice to reduce international development funding is a move to appease a political ally.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In March, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a biannual gathering held in parallel with the international conference on women's rights. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in buoyant mood as they celebrate shifts in US policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the global conference with a stark warning that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is back, after a analysis demonstrates that opponents of gender equality are actively undermining historic agreements on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa themed around the conservative family structures and national independence sparks alarm among equality campaigners. In the start of May, a president and first lady open a significant conference to resist what they label external influences undermining local norms. A soon after, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are participated in by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker urges African NGOs to stand up to “international liberal agenda” of global institutions. In the following month, a prominent church hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in an African nation, an event that health activists say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the extent of foreign involvement has expanded considerably.
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 global sexual health network states that their incineration will prevent a huge female population from access to birth control, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. 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 “heartless and dangerous”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains unresolved as local authorities refuse to permit usable products to be destroyed.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reviving the global gag rule, 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 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 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 cover diversity programmes. Further specifics about the policy's widened application are anticipated next year. A leader in global maternal health says broadening the policy will have “catastrophic impacts”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that new US aid packages being negotiated with countries in Africa will become dependent on agreeing to the new, wider policy.
