Five Defining Key Moments in the Rollback of the Freedoms of Women and Girls in This Past Year.
Twelve months prior, women’s rights organisations were bracing themselves for a Trump presidency sequel. Hardly anyone anticipated. The volume and speed of White House mandates emanating from the White House were regarded as a calculated strategy to cause confusion and fear. In many ways it worked – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as agencies hastened to fill the gap left by a freeze on international development funds. But that was just the beginning.
The Washington leadership has been the main instigator, aided by fervent lobbying efforts by ultra-conservative groups using the moment to strengthen global ties with ideological partners.
The movement against gender equality signifies a transnational grouping of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that work to dismantle gains in a variety of areas. This covers pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They do this by lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We review five moments that influenced the welfare, autonomy, and survival of females globally.
The Dismantling of USAID
In the month of March, a month and a half following a prominent humanitarian funder is frozen, causing international chaos, a top American diplomat reveals that over eighty percent of the body's projects will be terminated. US diplomats, past leaders and aid and medical specialists criticize the move, warning that fatalities will ensue. Human rights advocates say that the demise of the agency is not just a financial shortfall, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and family planning and reproductive care. Numerous groups say the impact on girls and women will be severe by waning support, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with millions more to come. Two other major donor nations initiate similar reductions. A leader of an international advocacy group says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is a move to appease a political ally.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In March, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a two-day conference held alongside the annual UN Women gathering. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in high spirits as they celebrate shifts in US policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the women’s summit with a somber alert that “the poison of patriarchy” is back, after a analysis demonstrates that groups opposing progressive rights are systematically eroding longstanding consensus on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the summer, a series of conferences in Africa centered on the conventional household and state autonomy raises concerns among equality campaigners. In the start of May, a national leader and spouse open a major forum to resist what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A shortly thereafter, 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 stand up to “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of international organizations. In June, a prominent church hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in the region, an event that health activists say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Advocates remark that the scale of their presence has increased markedly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As health facilities across Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in midsummer plans to incinerate a vast stockpile of birth control held in a storage facility in Belgium. A leading family planning organization states that their elimination will deprive countless females from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” 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 fulfill their original purpose, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains unresolved as the regional government will not allow perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reviving the global gag rule, 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 widely expected when the ban was reimposed in January. 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 include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Further specifics about the expansion of the rule are anticipated next year. A expert in child welfare says broadening the policy will have “unimaginable effects”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being negotiated with countries in Africa will become conditional on accepting the new, wider policy.
