A Quintet of Landmark Occurrences in the Challenge to the Rights of Females in the Past Year.
This time last year, women’s rights organisations were steeling themselves against a second Trump term. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The volume and speed of executive orders originating in the White House were interpreted as a premeditated approach to induce a state of shock. The tactic proved effective – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as networks struggled to plug the hole left by a major funding freeze. But the situation was about to worsen.
The Washington leadership has been the main instigator, supported by fervent lobbying efforts by far-right organisations capitalizing on the climate to strengthen global ties with political allies.
Often termed the anti-gender movement describes a worldwide alliance of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as affluent financiers and clans that seek to undermine progress across a wide spectrum of issues. This encompasses abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They pursue this agenda via lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We look at five junctures that impacted the welfare, autonomy, and survival of the female population.
USAID Dismantled
In the month of March, six weeks after a prominent humanitarian funder is its funds are blocked, causing global disruption, a top American diplomat confirms that over eighty percent of the organization's initiatives will be axed. Career diplomats, ex-presidents and aid and medical specialists condemn the news, predicting that people will die as a result. Human rights advocates say that the demise of the agency is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and family planning and reproductive care. A multitude of agencies say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by waning support, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Two other major donor nations announce their own austerity measures. A leader of an international advocacy group says a choice to reduce international development funding 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 high-end hotel in NYC for a two-day conference held concurrently with the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in buoyant mood as they celebrate shifts in US policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the gender equality forum with a somber alert that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is resurgent, after a study indicates that opponents of gender equality are deliberately weakening 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 themed around the traditional family and national sovereignty raises concerns among equality campaigners. In early May, a president and first lady open a large assembly to push back on what they label external influences undermining local norms. A few days later, another Pan-African conference on traditional morals is held. Both events are attended by leading American and European conservative activists, including heads of influential networks. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to resist “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of global institutions. In June, a prominent church hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in West Africa, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Activists observe that the extent of foreign involvement has grown significantly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As health facilities across Africa report they are running out of contraceptives, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in midsummer plans to incinerate a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a warehouse in Europe. A leading family planning organization states that their elimination will deprive millions of women and girls from access to birth control, 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 deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “heartless and dangerous”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains unresolved as the regional government will not allow the destruction of viable medicines.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the rule was reinstated in the first month of the year. 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 cover diversity programmes. More details on the broader enforcement are likely forthcoming. A director of a major health partnership says extending the reach will have “devastating consequences”. Pro-choice activists fear that new US aid packages being negotiated with countries in Africa will become dependent on agreeing to the expanded global gag.
