A Quintet of Significant Developments in the Challenge to the Rights of Women and Girls in This Past Year.
In the previous year, organisations advocating for women's rights were steeling themselves against a second Trump term. Scarcely anyone expected. The torrent and swiftness of administrative decrees originating in the White House were seen as a premeditated approach to overwhelm and create panic. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as agencies hastened to fill the gap left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But that was just the beginning.
The Washington leadership has been the main instigator, bolstered by relentless activism by ultra-conservative groups capitalizing on the climate to strengthen global ties with like-minded governments.
This opposition to progressive rights denotes an international coalition of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as affluent financiers and clans that seek to undermine gains in a variety of areas. Areas targeted involve reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They pursue this agenda via advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to push for parity, disseminating propaganda, and supporting ideologically-matched groups.
We review five instances that impacted the safety, dignity and lives of girls and women.
The Demise of a Major Aid Agency
In the month of March, a month and a half following a major US aid agency is its funds are blocked, causing widespread distress, a leading figure in the administration reveals that a vast majority of the organization's initiatives will be axed. American foreign service officers, ex-presidents and aid and medical specialists condemn the news, predicting that lives will be lost. Human rights advocates say that the closure of the organization is not just a financial shortfall, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and birth control and maternal healthcare. Many organisations say females will bear the brunt by reduced funding, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, evidence indicates how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with many more millions at risk. Two other major donor nations follow with their own cuts. A leader of an international advocacy group says a choice to reduce international development funding is a move to appease a political ally.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In March, several conservative religious groups meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a strategic summit held concurrently with the international conference on women's rights. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in high spirits as they celebrate changes in American foreign policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the women’s summit with a grave caution that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is returning, after a study indicates that groups opposing progressive rights are actively undermining 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 focused on the conventional household and state autonomy sparks alarm among equality campaigners. In May, a president and first lady open a major forum to resist what they label external influences undermining local norms. A shortly thereafter, another Pan-African conference on family values is held. Both events are graced by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including heads of influential networks. One speaker calls on African NGOs to stand up to “international liberal agenda” of global institutions. In June, a global faith group hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in an African nation, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Advocates remark that the level of external participation has expanded considerably.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As health facilities across Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in midsummer plans to dispose of millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a European depot. A leading family planning organization states that their destruction will deny countless females from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains unresolved as the regional government are blocking usable products to be destroyed.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reviving the global gag rule, which halts US aid to groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the policy was restored in January. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in October, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions 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 leader in global maternal health says widening the scope will have “unimaginable effects”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being discussed with African nations will become dependent on agreeing to the broadened restrictions.
