Five Defining Pivotal Events in the Attack on the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Past Year.
Twelve months prior, organisations advocating for women's rights were steeling themselves against a return of Donald Trump to office. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The flood and velocity of executive orders originating in the White House were seen as a deliberate tactic to paralyze through overload. In many ways it worked – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as groups rushed to address the shortfall left by a major funding freeze. But the situation was about to worsen.
The Trump administration has been the main instigator, complemented by fervent lobbying efforts by far-right organisations capitalizing on the climate to build worldwide connections with political allies.
This opposition to progressive rights denotes an international coalition of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that strive to weaken advances on numerous fronts. This covers access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They pursue this agenda via advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We examine five instances that shaped the security, respect, and well-being of the female population.
The Demise of a Major Aid Agency
In early spring, six weeks after a key American development organization is frozen, causing turmoil around the world, a top American diplomat announces that over eighty percent of the institution's work will be scrapped. Career diplomats, former presidents and aid and medical specialists condemn the news, cautioning that mortality will increase. Human rights advocates say that the closure of the organization is not just a financial shortfall, it is a savage attack on human rights and birth control and maternal healthcare. Many organisations say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by diminishing aid, especially in regions of instability. 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 a far greater catastrophe looming. Two other major donor nations initiate similar reductions. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In the same month, several Christian-right organisations meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a strategic summit held in parallel with the annual UN Women gathering. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they applaud changes in American foreign policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the global conference with a grave caution that “the poison of patriarchy” is resurgent, after a study indicates that groups opposing progressive rights are deliberately weakening longstanding consensus on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa centered on the traditional family and national sovereignty raises concerns among rights advocates. In the start of May, a head of state and partner open a significant conference to resist what they label external influences undermining local norms. A soon after, another continental gathering on traditional morals is held. Both events are graced by leading American and European conservative activists, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to push back against “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in an African nation, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Advocates remark that the level of external participation has expanded considerably.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As health facilities across Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in midsummer plans to incinerate a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a storage facility in Belgium. A major reproductive health federation states that their elimination will deprive countless females from family planning options, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains unresolved as host nation officials 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 offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is standard practice for 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 the autumn, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. More details on the expansion of the rule are likely forthcoming. A leader in global maternal health says broadening the policy will have “catastrophic impacts”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being discussed with African nations will become conditional on accepting the new, wider policy.
