Five Key Moments in the Rollback of the Freedoms of Women and Girls in This Past Year.
This time last year, women’s rights organisations were preparing for a return of Donald Trump to office. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The sheer number and rapid pace of executive orders coming out of the White House were seen as a premeditated approach to induce a state of shock. This strategy had its intended impact – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as networks struggled to compensate for the loss left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But this was only the precursor.
The Washington leadership has been the main instigator, complemented by intense advocacy work by religious fundamentalist networks capitalizing on the climate to strengthen global ties with political allies.
This opposition to progressive rights denotes an international coalition of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as affluent financiers and clans that work to dismantle forward movement on multiple topics. Areas targeted involve 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 foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We review five moments that impacted the welfare, autonomy, and survival of girls and women.
The Demise of a Major Aid Agency
In early spring, a month and a half following a prominent humanitarian funder is halted, causing widespread distress, a leading figure in the administration announces that a vast majority of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. US diplomats, former presidents and humanitarian and health experts decry the decision, stating that people will die as a result. Rights defenders say that the closure of the organization is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a savage attack on human rights and birth control and maternal healthcare. A multitude of agencies say females will bear the brunt by waning support, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with millions more to come. Another pair of leading funders follow with their own cuts. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In the same month, several conservative religious groups meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a strategic summit held alongside the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in buoyant mood as they celebrate new Washington directives on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the global conference with a grave caution that “the poison of patriarchy” is returning, after a report shows that opponents of gender equality are deliberately weakening established norms on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa focused on the conventional household and state autonomy sparks alarm among human rights defenders. In the start of May, a national leader and spouse open a major forum to push back on what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A few days later, another regional summit on traditional morals is held. Both events are participated in by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to resist “radical global social engineering” of global institutions. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in West Africa, an event that health activists say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Advocates remark that the scale of their presence has grown significantly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As health facilities across Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in midsummer plans to dispose of a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a warehouse in Europe. A leading family planning organization 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 forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains unresolved as host nation officials will not allow perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Reviving the global gag rule, which halts US aid to groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the rule was reinstated in January. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. 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. More details on the expansion of the rule are likely forthcoming. A leader in global maternal health says extending the reach will have “devastating consequences”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that fresh American assistance deals being discussed with African nations will become conditional on accepting the broadened restrictions.
