Five Major Landmark Occurrences in the Challenge to the Rights of Females in This Past Year.
Twelve months prior, groups dedicated to gender equality were steeling themselves against a return of Donald Trump to office. Scarcely anyone expected. The flood and velocity of administrative decrees coming out of the White House were viewed as a deliberate tactic to cause confusion and fear. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as networks struggled to address the shortfall left by a major funding freeze. But this was only the precursor.
The US administration has been the key driver, aided by fervent lobbying efforts by religious fundamentalist networks using the moment to strengthen global ties with sympathetic regimes.
The anti-rights movement denotes an international coalition of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that aim to roll back progress across a wide spectrum of issues. These include reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They achieve this through pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We look at five episodes that shaped the safety, dignity and lives of women and girls.
The Demise of a Major Aid Agency
In the month of March, a month and a half following a prominent humanitarian funder is halted, causing international chaos, a top American diplomat announces that the lion's share of the body's projects will be terminated. US diplomats, former presidents and humanitarian and health experts denounce the action, stating that lives will be lost. Rights defenders say that the demise of the agency is more than a funding crisis, it is a savage attack on human rights and birth control and maternal healthcare. A multitude of agencies say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by shrinking assistance, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, evidence indicates how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Another pair of leading funders follow with their own cuts. 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.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In March, several Christian-right organisations meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a strategic summit held concurrently with 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 world's top diplomat opens the global conference with a grave caution that “the poison of patriarchy” is resurgent, after a study indicates that anti-rights actors are deliberately weakening established norms on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa centered on the traditional family and national sovereignty raises concerns among equality campaigners. In May, a president and first lady open a significant conference to combat what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A few days later, another regional summit on family values is held. Both events are graced by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker urges African NGOs to stand up to “international liberal agenda” of international organizations. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in an African nation, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Campaigners note that the scale of their presence has increased markedly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
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 destroy millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a European depot. A major reproductive health federation states that their destruction will deny a huge female population from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains unresolved as host nation officials will not allow perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reviving the global gag rule, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It was widely expected 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 governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Further specifics about the expansion of the rule are likely forthcoming. A leader in global maternal health says extending the reach will have “catastrophic impacts”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that new US aid packages being discussed with African nations will become conditional on accepting the broadened restrictions.
