Five Defining Key Moments in the Assault on the Freedoms of Women and Girls in This Past Year.
A year ago, feminist advocacy groups were preparing for a new Trump administration. Scarcely anyone expected. The torrent and swiftness of White House mandates issued from the White House were viewed as a premeditated approach to overwhelm and create panic. In many ways it worked – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as organisations scrambled to plug the hole left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But this was only the precursor.
The Washington leadership has been the main instigator, complemented by relentless activism by ultra-conservative groups seizing the opportunity to build worldwide connections with sympathetic regimes.
This opposition to progressive rights refers to a global network of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as affluent financiers and clans that aim to roll back advances on numerous fronts. This encompasses reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They achieve this through advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We look at five instances that influenced the welfare, autonomy, and survival of females globally.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In the month of March, shortly after a key American development organization is halted, causing widespread distress, a senior US official confirms that nearly all of the organization's initiatives will be axed. US diplomats, ex-presidents and relief and public health authorities criticize the move, cautioning that lives will be lost. Activists say that the closure of the organization is more than a funding crisis, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and birth control and maternal healthcare. A multitude of agencies say the impact on girls and women will be severe by waning support, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, data shows how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with many more millions at risk. Additional key contributing countries proceed with parallel slashes. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a choice to reduce international development funding is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In March, several Christian-right organisations meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a biannual gathering held alongside the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in high spirits 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 venom of male dominance” is returning, after a study indicates that groups opposing progressive rights are systematically eroding established norms on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa focused on the conservative family structures and national independence sparks alarm among human rights defenders. In May, a head of state and partner open a large assembly to resist what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A shortly thereafter, another regional summit on family values is held. Both events are graced by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including heads of influential networks. One speaker calls on African NGOs to stand up to “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 reproductive rights advocates say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Activists observe that the extent of foreign involvement has expanded considerably.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As health facilities across Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in July plans to dispose of millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a warehouse in Europe. A major reproductive health federation states that their destruction will deny millions of women and girls from family planning options, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “callous and reckless”. Aid groups propose purchasing 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 refuse to permit usable products to be destroyed.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, 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 January. The administration also reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. Further specifics about the policy's widened application are anticipated next year. A leader in global maternal health says extending the reach will have “catastrophic impacts”. Pro-choice activists fear that new US aid packages being arranged with states on the continent will become conditional on accepting the expanded global gag.
