Five Crucial Incidents in the Rollback of the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Past Year.
This time last year, feminist advocacy groups were preparing for a second Trump term. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The torrent and swiftness of White House mandates coming out of the White House were regarded as a premeditated approach to overwhelm and create panic. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as networks struggled to fill the gap left by a sudden aid suspension. But the situation was about to worsen.
The US administration has been the main instigator, bolstered by vigorous campaigning by deeply conservative factions exploiting the situation to forge international alliances with like-minded governments.
This opposition to progressive rights denotes an international coalition of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as billionaire families and individuals that work to dismantle advances on numerous fronts. These include abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They pursue this agenda via pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We analyze five episodes that shaped the protection, honor, and existence of women and girls.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In the month of March, shortly after a key American development organization is its funds are blocked, causing turmoil around the world, a senior US official announces that the lion's share of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. Career diplomats, former presidents and humanitarian and health experts decry the decision, cautioning that mortality will increase. Rights defenders say that the closure of the organization is not just a financial shortfall, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Many organisations 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 significant mortality toll has been exacted from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Another pair of leading funders proceed with parallel slashes. A head of a worldwide campaign network 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 conservative religious groups meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a two-day conference held alongside the annual UN Women gathering. 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 applaud changes in American foreign 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 toxin of gendered hierarchy” is back, after a report shows that opponents of gender equality are actively undermining established norms on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the summer, a series of conferences in Africa centered on the conventional household and state autonomy sparks alarm among human rights defenders. In the start of May, a head of state and partner open a large assembly to combat what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A few days later, another Pan-African conference on family values is held. Both events are graced by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker calls on African NGOs to push back against “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of multilateral bodies. In June, a major religious institution hosts a family strengthening conference in the region, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Activists observe that the scale of their presence has increased markedly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As health facilities across Africa 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 major reproductive health federation states that their elimination will deprive a huge female population from access to birth control, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” 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 be distributed to those in need, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains in deadlock as local authorities will not allow usable products to be destroyed.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reviving the global gag rule, which halts US aid to groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It was widely expected 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 expand the global gag rule to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. Further specifics about the broader enforcement are likely forthcoming. A director of a major health partnership says widening the scope will have “unimaginable effects”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that fresh American assistance deals being discussed with African nations will become contingent upon adopting the broadened restrictions.
