Five Defining Significant Developments in the Assault on the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Past Year.
A year ago, groups dedicated to gender equality were preparing for a second Trump term. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The torrent and swiftness of White House mandates coming out of the White House were interpreted as a intentional maneuver to paralyze through overload. The tactic proved effective – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as organisations scrambled 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, bolstered by vigorous campaigning by far-right organisations exploiting the situation to forge international alliances with ideological partners.
The anti-rights movement denotes an international coalition of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as affluent financiers and clans that aim to roll back gains in a variety of areas. These include pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They achieve this through pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We analyze five junctures that impacted the welfare, autonomy, and survival of girls and women.
The Dismantling of USAID
In early spring, six weeks after a major US aid agency is suspended, causing turmoil around the world, a senior US official states that over eighty percent of the body's projects will be terminated. US diplomats, former presidents and aid and medical specialists decry the decision, warning that fatalities will ensue. Rights defenders say that the demise of the agency is greater than a budgetary issue, 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 waning support, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with millions more to come. Another pair of leading funders announce their own austerity measures. A leader of an international advocacy group says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a move to appease a political ally.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In the same month, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a two-day conference held alongside the international conference on women's rights. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in buoyant mood as they applaud 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 toxin of gendered hierarchy” is resurgent, after a report shows that opponents of gender equality are deliberately weakening historic agreements on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the warmer months, a series of conferences in Africa focused on the conservative family structures and national independence sparks alarm among rights advocates. In the start of May, a head of state and partner open a major forum to resist what they label external influences undermining local norms. A soon after, another Pan-African conference on family values is held. Both events are attended 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 international organizations. In the following month, a prominent church hosts a family strengthening conference in West Africa, an event that health activists say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Activists observe that the extent of foreign involvement has increased markedly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As health facilities across Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in midsummer plans to destroy a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a storage facility in Belgium. A major reproductive health federation states that their elimination will deprive millions of women and girls 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 exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “callous and reckless”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains in deadlock as local authorities will not allow perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which cuts American funding for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the policy was restored in January. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. 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 likely forthcoming. A leader in global maternal health says extending the reach will have “devastating consequences”. Pro-choice activists fear that fresh American assistance deals being negotiated with countries in Africa will become dependent on agreeing to the broadened restrictions.
