Five Major Landmark Occurrences in the Attack on the Rights of Women and Girls in the Past Year.
Twelve months prior, organisations advocating for women's rights were bracing themselves for a return of Donald Trump to office. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The volume and speed of White House mandates issued from the White House were viewed as a deliberate tactic to paralyze through overload. This strategy had its intended impact – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as groups rushed to address the shortfall left by a freeze on international development funds. But this merely marked the opening act.
The US administration has been the key driver, bolstered by intense advocacy work by far-right organisations exploiting the situation to solidify transnational relationships with political allies.
This opposition to progressive rights signifies a transnational grouping of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that seek to undermine gains in a variety of areas. This covers access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They achieve this through influencing policymakers, funding litigation, undermining global initiatives to push for parity, disseminating propaganda, and supporting ideologically-matched groups.
We analyze five instances that impacted the safety, dignity and lives of females globally.
The Demise of a Major Aid Agency
In early spring, shortly after a key American development organization is frozen, causing global disruption, a top American diplomat announces that a vast majority of the institution's work will be scrapped. Career diplomats, past leaders and aid and medical specialists decry the decision, predicting that mortality will increase. Activists say that the demise of the agency is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a savage attack on human rights and access to contraception and reproductive health services. A multitude of agencies say females will bear the brunt by diminishing aid, especially in war zones. As the year ends, evidence indicates how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Another pair of leading funders initiate similar reductions. A leader of an international advocacy group says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In the same month, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a strategic summit held alongside the international conference on women's rights. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in buoyant mood as they welcome shifts in US policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the gender equality forum with a stark warning that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is back, after a study indicates that groups opposing progressive rights are actively undermining longstanding consensus on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa focused on the conservative family structures and national independence sparks alarm among rights advocates. In early May, a president and first lady open a major forum to resist what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A few days later, another continental gathering on traditional morals is held. Both events are graced by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including heads of influential networks. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to stand up to “radical global social engineering” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a major religious institution hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in the region, an event that health activists say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Activists observe that the scale of their presence has grown significantly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are running out of contraceptives, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in July plans to incinerate a vast stockpile of birth control held in a storage facility in Belgium. A major reproductive health federation states that their destruction will deny millions of women and girls from family planning options, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. 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 “heartless and dangerous”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains unresolved as the regional government will not allow the destruction of viable medicines.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which cuts American funding for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the ban was reimposed in January. The administration also reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in October, 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. More details on the policy's widened application are anticipated next year. A director of a major health partnership says extending the reach will have “devastating consequences”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being discussed with African nations will become dependent on agreeing to the expanded global gag.
