Five Major Pivotal Events in the Attack on the Rights of Females in This Past Year.
In the previous year, organisations advocating for women's rights were bracing themselves for a return of Donald Trump to office. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The volume and speed of administrative decrees coming out of the White House were viewed as a calculated strategy to overwhelm and create panic. In many ways it worked – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as groups rushed to plug the hole left by a freeze on international development funds. But this merely marked the opening act.
The American government has been the central catalyst, supported by relentless activism by far-right organisations seizing the opportunity to forge international alliances with like-minded governments.
This opposition to progressive rights refers to a global network of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that seek to undermine advances on numerous fronts. This covers pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They accomplish their goals by pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We look at five moments that impacted the welfare, autonomy, and survival of females globally.
USAID Dismantled
In early spring, six weeks after a prominent humanitarian funder is halted, causing turmoil around the world, a senior US official reveals that a vast majority of the body's projects will be terminated. Career diplomats, former presidents and aid and medical specialists condemn the news, stating that fatalities will ensue. Activists say that the dismantling of this institution is not just a financial shortfall, it is a savage attack on human rights and family planning and reproductive care. A multitude of agencies say females will bear the brunt by shrinking assistance, especially in war zones. As the year ends, reports confirm how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with millions more to come. Additional key contributing countries announce their own austerity measures. 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 March, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a two-day conference held concurrently with the annual UN Women gathering. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they applaud shifts in US policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the global conference with a somber alert that “the venom of male dominance” is returning, after a analysis demonstrates that groups opposing progressive rights are systematically eroding longstanding consensus on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa centered on the conventional household and state autonomy raises concerns among rights advocates. In early 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 Pan-African conference on traditional morals is held. Both events are attended by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker calls on African NGOs to resist “radical global social engineering” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a prominent church hosts a family strengthening conference in the region, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Activists observe that the level of external participation has expanded considerably.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
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 dispose of a vast stockpile of birth control held in a storage facility in Belgium. A major reproductive health federation states that their incineration will prevent a huge female population from family planning options, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains unresolved as the regional government 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 offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the policy was restored in the first month of the year. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. 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. Additional information regarding the broader enforcement are likely forthcoming. A director of a major health partnership says broadening the policy will have “devastating consequences”. Pro-choice activists fear that new US aid packages being arranged with states on the continent will become dependent on agreeing to the broadened restrictions.
