Five Critical Pivotal Events in the Rollback of the Rights of Women and Girls in This Past Year.
Twelve months prior, women’s rights organisations were anticipating a second Trump term. Few were prepared for. The volume and speed of executive orders originating in the White House were viewed as a calculated strategy to overwhelm and create panic. In many ways it worked – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as networks struggled to plug the hole left by a major funding freeze. But that was just the beginning.
The American government has been the main instigator, aided by relentless activism by religious fundamentalist networks exploiting the situation to forge international alliances with political allies.
This opposition to progressive rights denotes an international coalition of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as billionaire families and individuals that aim to roll back advances on numerous fronts. Areas targeted involve abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They do this by advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We examine five moments that influenced the safety, dignity and lives of girls and women.
The Dismantling of USAID
In the month of March, shortly after a prominent humanitarian funder is halted, causing global disruption, a leading figure in the administration confirms that nearly all of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. American foreign service officers, past leaders and humanitarian and health experts denounce the action, stating that fatalities will ensue. Rights defenders say that the dismantling of this institution is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a savage attack on human rights and family planning and reproductive care. A multitude of agencies say females will bear the brunt by shrinking assistance, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with many more millions at risk. Another pair of leading funders proceed with parallel slashes. A director of a global justice organization says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In March, several conservative religious groups meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a biannual gathering held concurrently with the annual UN Women gathering. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in high spirits as they welcome shifts in US policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the women’s summit with a somber alert that “the venom of male dominance” is resurgent, after a report shows that groups opposing progressive rights are deliberately weakening historic agreements on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa centered on the conventional household and state autonomy raises concerns among equality campaigners. In May, a national leader and spouse open a significant conference to resist what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A soon after, another Pan-African conference on family values is held. Both events are graced by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including heads of influential networks. One speaker calls on African NGOs to resist “radical global social engineering” of multilateral bodies. In June, a global faith group hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in West Africa, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the scale of their presence has grown significantly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are running out of contraceptives, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in midsummer plans to dispose of a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a European depot. A leading family planning organization states that their incineration will prevent millions of women and girls from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. 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 renowned doctors' group calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains in deadlock as host nation officials will not allow usable products to be destroyed.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which cuts American funding for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the policy was restored in January. The administration also reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in October, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. Further specifics about the policy's widened application are anticipated next year. A leader in global maternal health says extending the reach will have “catastrophic impacts”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being negotiated with countries in Africa will become conditional on accepting the expanded global gag.
