Five Significant Developments in the Assault on the Rights of Women and Girls in This Past Year.
A year ago, organisations advocating for women's rights were preparing for a return of Donald Trump to office. Hardly anyone anticipated. The volume and speed of administrative decrees emanating from the White House were interpreted as a calculated strategy to paralyze through overload. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as networks struggled to address the shortfall left by a major funding freeze. But this was only the precursor.
The Washington leadership has been the key driver, complemented by vigorous campaigning by religious fundamentalist networks exploiting the situation to solidify transnational relationships with like-minded governments.
The anti-rights movement signifies a transnational grouping of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as affluent financiers and clans that strive to weaken progress across a wide spectrum of issues. These include abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They do this by lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We analyze five moments that impacted the safety, dignity and lives of the female population.
USAID Dismantled
In early spring, shortly after a prominent humanitarian funder is halted, causing international chaos, a leading figure in the administration confirms that the lion's share of the organization's initiatives will be axed. American foreign service officers, ex-presidents and humanitarian and health experts denounce the action, cautioning that fatalities will ensue. Rights defenders say that the demise of the agency is more than a funding crisis, 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 diminishing aid, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, reports confirm how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Additional key contributing countries proceed with parallel slashes. A leader of an international advocacy group says a choice to reduce international development funding is a move to appease a political ally.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In the same month, several conservative religious groups meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a two-day conference held in parallel with the international conference on women's rights. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in high spirits as they welcome shifts in US 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 toxin of gendered hierarchy” is resurgent, after a study indicates that anti-rights actors are actively undermining established norms on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa centered on the conventional household and state autonomy triggers anxiety among human rights defenders. In May, a head of state and partner open a major forum to push back on what they label external influences undermining local norms. A soon after, another regional summit on traditional morals is held. Both events are graced by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including heads of influential networks. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to resist “radical global social engineering” of global institutions. In June, a prominent church hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in West Africa, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the extent of foreign involvement has increased markedly.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As medical centers in numerous African countries 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 warehouse in Europe. A global sexual health network states that their destruction will deny millions of women and girls from contraceptive supplies, 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 deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains in deadlock as the regional government are blocking perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
‘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 policy was restored in January. The administration also reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in the autumn, 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 cover diversity programmes. Further specifics about the expansion of the rule are anticipated next year. A expert in child welfare says extending the reach will have “catastrophic impacts”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that fresh American assistance deals being negotiated with countries in Africa will become contingent upon adopting the new, wider policy.
