A Quintet of Pivotal Events in the Erosion of the Rights of Women and Girls in the Past Year.
This time last year, women’s rights organisations were bracing themselves for a new Trump administration. Hardly anyone anticipated. The flood and velocity of executive orders originating in the White House were seen as a premeditated approach to overwhelm and create panic. This strategy had its intended impact – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as networks struggled to fill the gap left by a freeze on international development funds. But this merely marked the opening act.
The Trump administration has been the primary force, bolstered by relentless activism by ultra-conservative groups seizing the opportunity to forge international alliances with ideological partners.
This opposition to progressive rights refers to a global network of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that strive to weaken forward movement on multiple topics. This covers abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They accomplish their goals by advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We look at five episodes that shaped the safety, dignity and lives of females globally.
USAID Dismantled
In March, a month and a half following a major US aid agency is frozen, causing international chaos, a senior US official announces that a vast majority of the organization's initiatives will be axed. American foreign service officers, ex-presidents and aid and medical specialists denounce the action, cautioning that fatalities will ensue. Human rights advocates say that the dismantling of this institution is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Numerous groups say females will bear the brunt by diminishing aid, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with millions more to come. Two other major donor nations announce their own austerity measures. A leader of an international advocacy group says a choice to reduce international development funding is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In the same month, several Christian-right organisations meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a two-day conference held in parallel with the international conference on women's rights. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in buoyant mood 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 resurgent, after a analysis demonstrates that groups opposing progressive rights are actively undermining longstanding consensus on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa themed around the conservative family structures and national independence triggers anxiety among equality campaigners. In the start of May, a national leader and spouse open a significant conference to push back on what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A soon after, another Pan-African conference on family values 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 resist “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of international organizations. In June, a global faith group hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in West Africa, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Advocates remark that the scale of their presence has increased markedly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As health facilities across Africa report they are running out of contraceptives, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in midsummer plans to destroy millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a warehouse in Europe. A global sexual health network states that their incineration will prevent millions of women and girls 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 forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “callous and reckless”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains unresolved as local authorities refuse to permit the destruction of viable medicines.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which halts US aid to groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the policy was restored 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 sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. Additional information regarding the policy's widened application are anticipated next year. A expert in child welfare says widening the scope will have “devastating consequences”. Pro-choice activists fear that fresh American assistance deals being discussed with African nations will become contingent upon adopting the expanded global gag.
