A Quintet of Key Moments in the Erosion of the Freedoms of Women and Girls in This Past Year.
Twelve months prior, organisations advocating for women's rights were preparing for a return of Donald Trump to office. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The torrent and swiftness of administrative decrees coming out of the White House were regarded as a intentional maneuver to induce a state of shock. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as groups rushed to address the shortfall left by a freeze on international development funds. But the situation was about to worsen.
The American government has been the main instigator, complemented by vigorous campaigning by deeply conservative factions capitalizing on the climate to forge international alliances with political allies.
Often termed the anti-gender movement signifies a transnational grouping of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that seek to undermine advances on numerous fronts. Areas targeted involve pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They accomplish their goals by pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We look at five episodes that impacted the safety, dignity and lives of females globally.
USAID Dismantled
In the month of March, six weeks after a major US aid agency is frozen, causing international chaos, a top American diplomat reveals that over eighty percent of the organization's initiatives will be axed. US diplomats, former presidents and aid and medical specialists condemn the news, predicting that fatalities will ensue. Human rights advocates say that the dismantling of this institution is more than a funding crisis, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Numerous groups say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by diminishing aid, especially in war zones. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with millions more to come. Another pair of leading funders proceed with parallel slashes. A director of a global justice organization says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In March, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a biannual gathering held alongside the international conference on women's rights. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in high spirits as they welcome new Washington directives on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the women’s summit with a somber alert that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is back, after a analysis demonstrates that opponents of gender equality are deliberately weakening established norms on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa centered on the traditional family and national sovereignty triggers anxiety among equality campaigners. In May, a president and first lady open a significant conference to resist what they label external influences undermining local norms. A soon after, another continental gathering on family values is held. Both events are graced by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker calls on African NGOs to stand up to “radical global social engineering” of multilateral bodies. In June, a global faith group hosts a family strengthening conference in an African nation, an event that health activists say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Advocates remark that the scale of their presence has grown significantly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in midsummer plans to dispose of a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a warehouse in Europe. 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 dogmatic choice “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains at a standstill as host nation officials refuse to permit the destruction of viable medicines.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reviving the global gag rule, which prohibits Washington's support 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 the first month of the year. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in October, the US announces it intends to broaden the scope of the policy to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. More details on the policy's widened application are likely forthcoming. A director of a major health partnership says widening the scope will have “unimaginable effects”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that new US aid packages being discussed with African nations will become conditional on accepting the new, wider policy.
