A Quintet of Pivotal Events in the Assault on the Rights of Women and Girls in This Past Year.
A year ago, groups dedicated to gender equality were anticipating a new Trump administration. Hardly anyone anticipated. The volume and speed of executive orders coming out of the White House were viewed as a intentional maneuver to induce a state of shock. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as agencies hastened to fill the gap left by a freeze on international development funds. But the situation was about to worsen.
The US administration has been the primary force, aided by relentless activism by religious fundamentalist networks exploiting the situation to forge international alliances with political allies.
The movement against gender equality signifies a transnational grouping of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as affluent financiers and clans that strive to weaken forward movement on multiple topics. This covers access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They accomplish their goals by advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We look at five instances that influenced the security, respect, and well-being of the female population.
USAID Dismantled
In the month of March, six weeks after a prominent humanitarian funder is its funds are blocked, causing turmoil around the world, a leading figure in the administration states that nearly all of the institution's work will be scrapped. Career diplomats, former presidents and humanitarian and health experts criticize the move, cautioning that fatalities will ensue. Human rights advocates say that the closure of the organization is not just a financial shortfall, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and birth control and maternal healthcare. A multitude of agencies say the impact on girls and women will be severe by waning support, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, reports confirm how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with many more millions at risk. Additional key contributing countries initiate similar reductions. 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.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In March, several Christian-right organisations meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a biannual gathering held concurrently with the international conference on women's rights. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they applaud shifts in US policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the global conference with a grave caution that “the poison of patriarchy” is back, after a analysis demonstrates that groups opposing progressive rights are actively undermining established norms on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa focused on the conservative family structures and national independence triggers anxiety among human rights defenders. In May, a national leader and spouse open a significant conference to push back on what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A shortly thereafter, another regional summit on traditional morals is held. Both events are attended by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker urges African NGOs to push back against “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of global institutions. In June, a global faith group hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in the region, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the level of external participation has grown significantly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are facing shortages of birth control, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in midsummer plans to destroy a vast stockpile of birth control held in a warehouse in Europe. A major reproductive health federation states that their incineration will prevent countless females from access to birth control, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “callous and reckless”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains in deadlock as host nation officials refuse to permit 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 the first month of the year. The administration also reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in October, the US announces it intends to broaden the scope of the policy to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. More details on the expansion of the rule are anticipated next year. A director of a major health partnership says broadening the policy will have “catastrophic impacts”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that fresh American assistance deals being discussed with African nations will become contingent upon adopting the broadened restrictions.
