Five Critical Key Moments in the Rollback of the Rights of Women and Girls in the Past Year.
In the previous year, feminist advocacy groups were steeling themselves against a Trump presidency sequel. Hardly anyone anticipated. The flood and velocity of White House mandates coming out of the White House were viewed as a premeditated approach to induce a state of shock. This strategy had its intended impact – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as groups rushed to plug the hole left by a freeze on international development funds. But that was just the beginning.
The Trump administration has been the main instigator, bolstered by vigorous campaigning by deeply conservative factions exploiting the situation to forge international alliances with ideological partners.
Often termed the anti-gender movement signifies a transnational grouping of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that strive to weaken gains in a variety of areas. These include access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They accomplish their goals by influencing policymakers, funding litigation, undermining global initiatives to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We look at five episodes that shaped the welfare, autonomy, and survival of the female population.
USAID Dismantled
In March, a month and a half following a prominent humanitarian funder is its funds are blocked, causing widespread distress, a top American diplomat states that nearly all of the organization's initiatives will be axed. Career diplomats, former presidents and aid and medical specialists decry the decision, predicting that mortality will increase. Rights defenders say that the demise of the agency is more than a funding crisis, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms 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, reports confirm 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 announce their own austerity measures. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In the same month, 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 counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in buoyant mood as they applaud changes in American foreign policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the women’s summit with a somber alert that “the poison of patriarchy” is resurgent, after a study indicates that opponents of gender equality are actively undermining established norms on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the warmer months, a series of conferences in Africa centered on the conventional household and state autonomy sparks alarm among rights advocates. In the start of May, a president and first lady open a major forum to push back on what they label external influences undermining local norms. A few days later, another regional summit on traditional morals is held. Both events are participated in by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker calls on African NGOs to push back against “international liberal agenda” of multilateral bodies. In June, a prominent church hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in an African nation, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. 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 facing shortages of birth control, 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 warehouse in Europe. A major reproductive health federation states that their incineration will prevent countless females from contraceptive supplies, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. 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 host nation officials will not allow usable products to be destroyed.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Reviving the global gag rule, which cuts American funding for 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 the first month of the year. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in October, 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. Additional information regarding the expansion of the rule are anticipated next year. A leader in global maternal health says broadening the policy will have “devastating consequences”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that new US aid packages being discussed with African nations will become conditional on accepting the new, wider policy.