Five Crucial Incidents in the Attack on the Rights of Women and Girls in the Past Year.
This time last year, women’s rights organisations were bracing themselves for a second Trump term. Scarcely anyone expected. The volume and speed of executive orders originating in the White House were interpreted as a calculated strategy to overwhelm and create panic. The tactic proved effective – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as agencies hastened to compensate for the loss left by a freeze on international development funds. But that was just the beginning.
The American government has been the key driver, aided by fervent lobbying efforts by far-right organisations capitalizing on the climate to solidify transnational relationships with sympathetic regimes.
This opposition to progressive rights refers to a global network of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that aim to roll back forward movement on multiple topics. This covers abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They pursue this agenda via advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We analyze five junctures that affected the welfare, autonomy, and survival of women and girls.
The Dismantling of USAID
In March, six weeks after a key American development organization is frozen, causing international chaos, a senior US official states that nearly all of the organization's initiatives will be axed. US diplomats, ex-presidents and aid and medical specialists condemn the news, cautioning that fatalities will ensue. 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 access to contraception and reproductive health services. A multitude of agencies say females will bear the brunt by shrinking assistance, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, data shows how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with many more millions at risk. Two other major donor nations proceed with parallel slashes. A director of a global justice organization says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In the same month, several conservative religious groups meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a strategic summit 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 optimistic frame of mind as they welcome shifts in US policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the women’s summit with a grave caution that “the venom of male dominance” is returning, after a study indicates that opponents of gender equality are actively undermining historic agreements on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the summer, a series of conferences in Africa focused on the conservative family structures and national independence raises concerns among equality campaigners. In May, a president and first lady open a large assembly to push back on what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A shortly thereafter, another continental gathering on family values is held. Both events are attended by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including heads of influential networks. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to push back against “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of international organizations. In the following month, a major religious institution hosts a family strengthening conference in an African nation, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Activists observe that the level of external participation has increased markedly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in midsummer plans to dispose of a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a storage facility in Belgium. A major reproductive health federation states that their destruction will deny a huge female population from family planning options, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “callous and reckless”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains at a standstill as local authorities are blocking the destruction of viable medicines.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the policy was restored in January. The administration also reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in October, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Further specifics about the policy's widened application are likely forthcoming. A leader in global maternal health says extending the reach will have “catastrophic impacts”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that new US aid packages being discussed with African nations will become dependent on agreeing to the broadened restrictions.
