Five Major Pivotal Events in the Assault on the Rights of Women and Girls in This Past Year.
A year ago, groups dedicated to gender equality were anticipating a new Trump administration. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The sheer number and rapid pace of administrative decrees issued from the White House were seen as a deliberate tactic to paralyze through overload. The tactic proved effective – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as groups rushed to address the shortfall left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But this merely marked the opening act.
The Washington leadership has been the primary force, bolstered by vigorous campaigning by deeply conservative factions capitalizing on the climate to solidify transnational relationships with like-minded governments.
The anti-rights movement describes a worldwide alliance of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as billionaire families and individuals that seek to undermine advances on numerous fronts. Areas targeted involve abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They achieve this through lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We analyze five episodes that shaped the safety, dignity and lives of the female population.
The Demise of a Major Aid Agency
In early spring, shortly after a key American development organization is frozen, causing turmoil around the world, a senior US official states that a vast majority of the institution's work will be scrapped. American foreign service officers, ex-presidents and relief and public health authorities criticize the move, stating that lives will be lost. Activists say that the closure of the organization is more than a funding crisis, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and family planning and reproductive care. Many organisations say females will bear the brunt by waning support, 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 millions more to come. Another pair of leading funders announce their own austerity measures. A leader of an international advocacy group says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In the same month, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a strategic summit held concurrently 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 celebrate shifts in US policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the women’s summit with a grave caution that “the poison of patriarchy” is returning, after a study indicates that anti-rights actors are systematically eroding established norms on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa themed around the conventional household and state autonomy triggers anxiety among equality campaigners. In early May, a national leader and spouse open a large assembly to resist what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A few days later, another Pan-African conference on traditional morals is held. Both events are graced by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker urges African NGOs to push back against “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of global institutions. In the following month, 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. Campaigners note that the level of external participation 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 emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in midsummer plans to incinerate a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a European depot. A major reproductive health federation states that their incineration will prevent a huge female population from family planning options, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains at a standstill as the regional government refuse to permit usable products to be destroyed.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which halts US aid to groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the ban was reimposed in January. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in the autumn, 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 cover diversity programmes. Further specifics about the broader enforcement are likely forthcoming. A leader in global maternal health says broadening the policy will have “unimaginable effects”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that new US aid packages being negotiated with countries in Africa will become conditional on accepting the new, wider policy.
