Five Significant Developments in the Rollback of the Rights of Females in the Past Year.
In the previous year, women’s rights organisations were anticipating a return of Donald Trump to office. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The torrent and swiftness of executive orders coming out of the White House were viewed as a calculated strategy to cause confusion and fear. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as organisations scrambled to address the shortfall left by a freeze on international development funds. But this merely marked the opening act.
The Trump administration has been the central catalyst, aided by fervent lobbying efforts by ultra-conservative groups capitalizing on the climate to solidify transnational relationships with sympathetic regimes.
The anti-rights movement signifies a transnational grouping of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as billionaire families and individuals that work to dismantle advances on numerous fronts. This encompasses access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They achieve this through lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We look at five junctures that impacted the welfare, autonomy, and survival of women and girls.
USAID Dismantled
In the month of March, shortly after a major US aid agency is suspended, causing turmoil around the world, a top American diplomat reveals that the lion's share of the organization's initiatives will be axed. US diplomats, past leaders and aid and medical specialists decry the decision, stating that mortality will increase. Human rights advocates say that the closure of the organization is more than a funding crisis, it is a savage attack on human rights and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Many organisations say females will bear the brunt by shrinking assistance, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, data shows 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. Additional key contributing countries follow with their own cuts. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In March, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a two-day conference held alongside the annual UN Women gathering. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in buoyant mood as they celebrate new Washington directives on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the global conference with a grave caution that “the venom of male dominance” is resurgent, after a report shows that groups opposing progressive rights are deliberately weakening longstanding consensus on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa themed around the traditional family and national sovereignty sparks alarm among rights advocates. In early May, a head of state and partner open a large assembly to combat what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A shortly thereafter, another regional summit on conservative ethics is held. Both events are graced by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker calls on African NGOs to push back against “international liberal agenda” of global institutions. In the following month, a major religious institution 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. Activists observe that the extent of foreign involvement has grown significantly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in midsummer plans to destroy millions of dollars worth of contraceptives 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 ideological decision “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “heartless and dangerous”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains at a standstill as the regional government will not allow usable products to be destroyed.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reviving the global gag rule, which halts US aid to 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 broaden the scope of the policy to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. Further specifics about the broader enforcement are likely forthcoming. A director of a major health partnership says widening the scope will have “devastating consequences”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that new US aid packages being arranged with states on the continent will become conditional on accepting the expanded global gag.
