Five Crucial Incidents in the Erosion of the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Past Year.
In the previous year, groups dedicated to gender equality were bracing themselves for a new Trump administration. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The volume and speed of White House mandates originating in the White House were interpreted as a calculated strategy to cause confusion and fear. In many ways it worked – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as groups rushed to address the shortfall left by a sudden aid suspension. But the situation was about to worsen.
The Washington leadership has been the central catalyst, complemented by vigorous campaigning by far-right organisations capitalizing on the climate to solidify transnational relationships with like-minded governments.
This opposition to progressive rights denotes an international coalition of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as affluent financiers and clans that strive to weaken forward movement on multiple topics. These include access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They do this by lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We analyze five episodes that affected the welfare, autonomy, and survival of girls and women.
USAID Dismantled
In early spring, six weeks after a prominent humanitarian funder is frozen, causing international chaos, a top American diplomat announces that over eighty percent of the body's projects will be terminated. US diplomats, past leaders and aid and medical specialists criticize the move, cautioning that lives will be lost. Human rights advocates say that the closure of the organization is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a savage attack on human rights and family planning and reproductive care. Many organisations say the impact on girls and women will be severe by waning support, especially in war zones. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with millions more to come. Another pair of leading funders follow with their own cuts. A leader of an international advocacy group says a choice to reduce international development funding is a move to appease a political ally.
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 two-day conference held in parallel with the international conference on women's rights. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they welcome new Washington directives on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the global conference with a somber alert that “the poison of patriarchy” is resurgent, after a analysis demonstrates that opponents of gender equality are systematically eroding longstanding consensus on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa centered on the conventional household and state autonomy triggers anxiety among rights advocates. In May, a president and first lady open a major forum 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 attended by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker calls on African NGOs to stand up to “international liberal agenda” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a major religious institution hosts a family strengthening conference in the region, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Activists observe that the extent of foreign involvement has expanded considerably.
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 July plans to dispose of a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a storage facility in Belgium. A global sexual health network states that their destruction will deny countless females from access to birth control, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. 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 international emergency medical charity calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains unresolved as the regional government will not allow perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reviving the global gag rule, 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 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 national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. More details on the broader enforcement are likely forthcoming. A expert in child welfare says extending the reach will have “unimaginable effects”. Pro-choice activists fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being negotiated with countries in Africa will become contingent upon adopting the broadened restrictions.
