Five Major Significant Developments in the Challenge to the Rights of Females in This Past Year.
A year ago, organisations advocating for women's rights were bracing themselves for a new Trump administration. Hardly anyone anticipated. The torrent and swiftness of White House mandates emanating from the White House were interpreted as a premeditated approach to induce a state of shock. This strategy had its intended impact – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as groups rushed to fill the gap left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But this merely marked the opening act.
The Trump administration has been the primary force, aided by relentless activism by religious fundamentalist networks exploiting the situation to forge international alliances with political allies.
This opposition to progressive rights signifies a transnational grouping of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as billionaire families and individuals that strive to weaken advances on numerous fronts. This encompasses reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They achieve this through lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We examine five episodes that shaped the security, respect, and well-being of women and girls.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In the month of March, shortly after a major US aid agency is its funds are blocked, causing international chaos, a leading figure in the administration announces that over eighty percent of the organization's initiatives will be axed. Career diplomats, past leaders and relief and public health authorities criticize the move, cautioning that fatalities will ensue. Activists say that the demise of the agency is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and birth control and maternal healthcare. A multitude of agencies say the impact on girls and women will be severe by reduced funding, especially in war zones. As the year ends, data shows how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with millions more to come. Two other major donor nations 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 Christian-right organisations meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a biannual gathering held in parallel with the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they celebrate shifts in US policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the global conference with a grave caution that “the venom of male dominance” is returning, after a study indicates that opponents of gender equality are deliberately weakening longstanding consensus on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa themed around the conservative family structures and national independence triggers anxiety among human rights defenders. In May, a head of state and partner open a major forum to resist what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A shortly thereafter, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are graced by leading American and European conservative activists, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker calls on African NGOs to push back against “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of global institutions. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in an African nation, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Campaigners note that the scale of their presence has increased markedly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in midsummer plans to dispose of a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a storage facility in Belgium. A leading family planning organization states that their elimination will deprive countless females from access to birth control, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “callous and reckless”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains at a standstill as host nation officials are blocking perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which cuts American funding for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the policy was restored 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 expand the global gag rule 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 extending the reach will have “devastating consequences”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that fresh American assistance deals being arranged with states on the continent will become dependent on agreeing to the expanded global gag.
