Five Major Key Moments in the Rollback of the Rights of Women and Girls in the Past Year.
Twelve months prior, women’s rights organisations were anticipating a new Trump administration. Hardly anyone anticipated. The sheer number and rapid pace of executive orders originating in the White House were regarded as a premeditated approach to cause confusion and fear. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as agencies hastened to fill the gap left by a freeze on international development funds. But this was only the precursor.
The US administration has been the main instigator, bolstered by vigorous campaigning by deeply conservative factions seizing the opportunity to strengthen global ties with political allies.
Often termed the anti-gender movement refers to a global network of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that seek to undermine advances on numerous fronts. This encompasses abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They achieve this through advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to push for parity, disseminating propaganda, and supporting ideologically-matched groups.
We analyze five episodes that shaped the welfare, autonomy, and survival of females globally.
The Dismantling of USAID
In the month of March, shortly after a key American development organization is frozen, causing international chaos, a leading figure in the administration states that a vast majority of the body's projects will be terminated. American foreign service officers, ex-presidents and humanitarian and health experts decry the decision, cautioning that people will die as a result. Activists say that the closure of the organization is not just a financial shortfall, it is a savage attack on human rights and access to contraception and reproductive health services. A multitude of agencies say the impact on girls and women will be severe by shrinking assistance, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with millions more to come. Two other major donor nations 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.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In the same month, several conservative religious groups meet in an high-end hotel in NYC 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 high spirits as they applaud new Washington directives on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the global conference with a somber alert that “the poison of patriarchy” is back, after a report shows that groups opposing progressive rights are deliberately weakening established norms on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the summer, a series of conferences in Africa focused on the conventional household and state autonomy triggers anxiety among rights advocates. In May, a head of state and partner open a major forum to push back on what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A few days later, another continental gathering on conservative ethics is held. Both events are graced by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including heads of influential networks. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to resist “international liberal agenda” of international organizations. In June, a global faith group hosts a family strengthening conference in the region, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Activists observe that the extent of foreign involvement has expanded considerably.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in midsummer plans to incinerate a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a warehouse in Europe. A leading family planning organization states that their destruction will deny a huge female population from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains at a standstill as local authorities will not allow the destruction of viable medicines.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
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 came as no surprise 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 sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. More details on the broader enforcement are anticipated next year. A leader in global maternal health says broadening the policy will have “unimaginable effects”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that fresh American assistance deals being negotiated with countries in Africa will become conditional on accepting the broadened restrictions.
