Five Major Pivotal Events in the Challenge to the Rights of Females in the Past Year.
In the previous year, organisations advocating for women's rights were preparing for a Trump presidency sequel. Hardly anyone anticipated. The volume and speed of executive orders originating in the White House were regarded as a deliberate tactic to paralyze through overload. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as groups rushed to compensate for the loss left by a sudden aid suspension. But the situation was about to worsen.
The Washington leadership has been the key driver, complemented by relentless activism by far-right organisations using the moment to strengthen global ties with sympathetic regimes.
The movement against gender equality denotes an international coalition of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as billionaire families and individuals that work to dismantle gains in a variety of areas. These include access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They achieve this through pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We review five episodes that influenced the welfare, autonomy, and survival of girls and women.
The Dismantling of USAID
In the month of March, six weeks after a major US aid agency is suspended, causing widespread distress, a senior US official states that over eighty percent of the institution's work will be scrapped. US diplomats, former presidents and relief and public health authorities condemn the news, predicting that fatalities will ensue. Rights defenders say that the closure of the organization is more than a funding crisis, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and birth control and maternal healthcare. Many organisations say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by waning support, 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 many more millions at risk. Additional key contributing countries initiate similar reductions. A leader of an international advocacy group says a choice to reduce international development funding is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In the same month, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a biannual gathering held concurrently with 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 buoyant mood as they applaud new Washington directives on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the women’s summit with a somber alert that “the poison of patriarchy” is resurgent, after a analysis demonstrates that groups opposing progressive rights are deliberately weakening longstanding consensus on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa themed around the traditional family and national sovereignty triggers anxiety among rights advocates. In early May, a president and first lady open a significant conference to resist what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A soon after, another regional summit on conservative ethics is held. Both events are attended by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker urges African NGOs to stand up to “international liberal agenda” of global institutions. In the following month, a prominent church hosts a family strengthening conference in West Africa, an event that health activists say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Advocates remark that the scale of their presence has increased markedly.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
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 destroy 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 a huge female population from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “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 declines every proposal. The situation remains unresolved as the regional government will not allow the destruction of viable medicines.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which halts US aid to groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is commonplace under 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 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. Further specifics about the broader enforcement are anticipated next year. A leader in global maternal health says extending the reach will have “unimaginable effects”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being discussed with African nations will become dependent on agreeing to the new, wider policy.
