Five Key Moments in the Challenge to the Rights of Females in the Past Year.
This time last year, women’s rights organisations were bracing themselves for a new Trump administration. Hardly anyone anticipated. The volume and speed of executive orders issued from the White House were regarded as a calculated strategy to induce a state of shock. The tactic proved effective – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as agencies hastened to plug the hole left by a major funding freeze. But this was only the precursor.
The US administration has been the main instigator, aided by vigorous campaigning by religious fundamentalist networks seizing the opportunity to forge international alliances with ideological partners.
This opposition to progressive rights describes a worldwide alliance of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as affluent financiers and clans that seek to undermine forward movement on multiple topics. These include 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 foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We analyze five junctures that impacted the security, respect, and well-being of girls and women.
The Demise of a Major Aid Agency
In early spring, a month and a half following a key American development organization is halted, causing global disruption, a top American diplomat announces that the lion's share of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. US diplomats, former presidents and aid and medical specialists decry the decision, warning that people will die as a result. Activists say that the demise of the agency is not just a financial shortfall, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and access to contraception and reproductive health services. A multitude of agencies say females will bear the brunt by waning support, especially in war zones. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with many more millions at risk. Two other major donor nations proceed with parallel slashes. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In the same month, several Christian-right organisations meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a strategic summit held concurrently with the international conference on women's rights. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they welcome changes in American foreign policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the global conference with a stark warning that “the venom of male dominance” is returning, after a study indicates that groups opposing progressive rights are systematically eroding established norms on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa themed around the conventional household and state autonomy triggers anxiety among equality campaigners. In May, a head of state and partner open a large assembly to push back on what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A few days later, another continental gathering on traditional morals is held. Both events are participated in by leading American and European conservative activists, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to push back against “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a family strengthening conference in West Africa, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Advocates remark that the scale of their presence has expanded considerably.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As health facilities across Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in midsummer plans to destroy a vast stockpile of birth control held in a warehouse in Europe. A global sexual health network states that their destruction will deny countless females from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains in deadlock as the regional government refuse to permit usable products to be destroyed.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reviving the global gag rule, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the ban was reimposed in January. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in October, 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 include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Further specifics about the expansion of the rule are anticipated next year. A director of a major health partnership says extending the reach will have “unimaginable effects”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that new US aid packages being negotiated with countries in Africa will become conditional on accepting the broadened restrictions.
