Five Defining Pivotal Events in the Assault on the Rights of Females in This Past Year.
In the previous year, organisations advocating for women's rights were steeling themselves against a Trump presidency sequel. Hardly anyone anticipated. The volume and speed of administrative decrees issued from the White House were interpreted as a calculated strategy to cause confusion and fear. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as networks struggled to plug the hole left by a sudden aid suspension. But this merely marked the opening act.
The Trump administration has been the key driver, aided by relentless activism by ultra-conservative groups capitalizing on the climate to build worldwide connections with like-minded governments.
This opposition to progressive rights signifies a transnational grouping of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that aim to roll back progress across a wide spectrum of issues. These include access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They achieve this through advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We review five moments that shaped the safety, dignity and lives of girls and women.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In March, shortly after a major US aid agency is frozen, causing turmoil around the world, a senior US official reveals that over eighty percent of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. Career diplomats, ex-presidents and aid and medical specialists condemn the news, predicting that mortality will increase. Activists say that the dismantling of this institution is not just a financial shortfall, 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 war zones. As the year ends, evidence indicates how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Another pair of leading funders announce their own austerity measures. A director of a global justice organization says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In March, several conservative religious groups meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a strategic summit held in parallel with the annual UN Women gathering. 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 applaud changes in American foreign policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the women’s summit with a stark warning that “the venom of male dominance” is returning, after a analysis demonstrates that groups opposing progressive rights are deliberately weakening established norms on key women’s rights issues around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the summer, a series of conferences in Africa focused on the traditional family and national sovereignty sparks alarm among human rights defenders. In the start of May, a national leader and spouse open a large assembly to resist what they label external influences undermining local norms. A shortly thereafter, another regional summit on traditional morals is held. Both events are attended by leading American and European conservative activists, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker urges African NGOs to stand up to “radical global social engineering” of multilateral bodies. In June, a prominent church hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in an African nation, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Campaigners note that the scale of their presence has expanded considerably.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are facing shortages of birth control, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in July plans to incinerate millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a European depot. A major reproductive health federation states that their incineration will prevent countless females from family planning options, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains unresolved as the regional government are blocking the destruction of viable medicines.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which halts US aid to groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It was anticipated 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 extend the restrictions to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Additional information regarding the policy's widened application are anticipated next year. A leader in global maternal health says broadening the policy will have “catastrophic impacts”. Pro-choice activists fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being negotiated with countries in Africa will become contingent upon adopting the new, wider policy.
