Five Critical Crucial Incidents in the Erosion of the Rights of Women and Girls in the Past Year.
This time last year, feminist advocacy groups were anticipating a second Trump term. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The torrent and swiftness of administrative decrees coming out of the White House were interpreted as a intentional maneuver to overwhelm and create panic. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as networks struggled to address the shortfall left by a freeze on international development funds. But that was just the beginning.
The US administration has been the main instigator, supported by relentless activism by ultra-conservative groups using the moment to build worldwide connections with political allies.
The movement against gender equality describes a worldwide alliance of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that work to dismantle progress across a wide spectrum of issues. This covers access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They pursue this agenda via lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to push for parity, disseminating propaganda, and supporting ideologically-matched groups.
We look at five junctures that affected the protection, honor, and existence of women and girls.
The Demise of a Major Aid Agency
In the month of March, a month and a half following a major US aid agency is frozen, causing international chaos, a senior US official reveals that over eighty percent of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. American foreign service officers, ex-presidents and relief and public health authorities denounce the action, cautioning that lives will be lost. Human rights advocates say that the closure of the organization is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a savage attack on human rights and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Numerous groups say the impact on girls and women will be severe by reduced funding, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Another pair of leading funders proceed with parallel slashes. 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.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In the same month, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a biannual gathering held alongside the international conference on women's rights. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in high spirits as they applaud new Washington directives on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the gender equality forum with a stark warning that “the poison of patriarchy” is returning, after a report shows that opponents of gender equality are systematically eroding historic agreements on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the summer, a cluster of meetings in Africa centered on the conservative family structures and national independence sparks alarm among rights advocates. In early May, a president and first lady open a large assembly to resist what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A few days later, another continental gathering on traditional morals is held. Both events are attended by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to push back against “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a major religious institution hosts a family strengthening conference in the region, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Advocates remark that the scale of their presence has expanded considerably.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in July plans to incinerate a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a warehouse in Europe. A leading family planning organization states that their destruction will deny countless females from access to birth control, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains at a standstill as local authorities refuse to permit perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which cuts American funding for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the rule was reinstated in the first month of the year. 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 sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Further specifics about the policy's widened application are anticipated next year. A expert in child welfare says widening the scope will have “devastating consequences”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that new US aid packages being discussed with African nations will become contingent upon adopting the broadened restrictions.
