Five Critical Significant Developments in the Erosion of the Rights of Women and Girls in This Past Year.
In the previous year, women’s rights organisations were anticipating a return of Donald Trump to office. Scarcely anyone expected. The flood and velocity of executive orders issued from the White House were viewed as a deliberate tactic to paralyze through overload. The tactic proved effective – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as organisations scrambled to fill the gap left by a freeze on international development funds. But this was only the precursor.
The US administration has been the main instigator, bolstered by intense advocacy work by ultra-conservative groups seizing the opportunity to build worldwide connections with ideological partners.
The anti-rights movement describes a worldwide alliance of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as affluent financiers and clans that work to dismantle forward movement on multiple topics. These include pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They pursue this agenda via influencing policymakers, funding litigation, undermining global initiatives to push for parity, disseminating propaganda, and supporting ideologically-matched groups.
We examine five moments that shaped the protection, honor, and existence of girls and women.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In early spring, shortly after a key American development organization is its funds are blocked, causing widespread distress, a leading figure in the administration announces that nearly all of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. American foreign service officers, ex-presidents and aid and medical specialists condemn the news, predicting that people will die as a result. Activists say that the dismantling of this institution is more than a funding crisis, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and access to contraception and reproductive health services. A multitude of agencies say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by reduced funding, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, reports confirm how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, 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.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In March, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a biannual gathering held alongside the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in high spirits as they welcome changes in American foreign policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the global conference with a grave caution that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is returning, after a report shows that opponents of gender equality are deliberately weakening established norms on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the summer, a cluster of meetings in Africa centered on the conventional household and state autonomy triggers anxiety among human rights defenders. In the start of May, a president and first lady open a major forum to resist what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A shortly thereafter, another Pan-African conference on traditional morals is held. Both events are participated in by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker calls on African NGOs to resist “radical global social engineering” of multilateral bodies. In June, a global faith group hosts a family strengthening conference in an African nation, 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.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
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 July plans to incinerate a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a storage facility in Belgium. A global sexual health network states that their incineration will prevent countless females from family planning options, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains unresolved as local authorities 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 provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the ban was reimposed in the first month of the year. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. 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 cover diversity programmes. Additional information regarding the broader enforcement are likely forthcoming. A director of a major health partnership says broadening the policy will have “catastrophic impacts”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being discussed with African nations will become conditional on accepting the broadened restrictions.
