Five Defining Significant Developments in the Attack on the Rights of Women and Girls in the Past Year.
Twelve months prior, women’s rights organisations were preparing for a Trump presidency sequel. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The flood and velocity of presidential directives emanating from the White House were viewed as a calculated strategy to cause confusion and fear. This strategy had its intended impact – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as groups rushed to compensate for the loss left by a freeze on international development funds. But this was only the precursor.
The Washington leadership has been the central catalyst, supported by fervent lobbying efforts by ultra-conservative groups using the moment to forge international alliances with ideological partners.
This opposition to progressive rights describes a worldwide alliance of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as affluent financiers and clans that work to dismantle advances on numerous fronts. Areas targeted involve access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They do this by pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We look at five episodes that shaped the protection, honor, and existence of females globally.
The Demise of a Major Aid Agency
In the month of March, shortly after a key American development organization is suspended, causing turmoil around the world, a senior US official announces that over eighty percent of the body's projects will be terminated. American foreign service officers, former presidents and aid and medical specialists denounce the action, predicting that mortality will increase. Rights defenders say that the closure of the organization is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a savage attack on human rights and family planning and reproductive care. Numerous groups say the impact on girls and women will be severe by reduced funding, especially in conflict areas. 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. Two other major donor nations announce their own austerity measures. A leader of an international advocacy group says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a move to appease a political ally.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In March, several conservative religious groups meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a strategic summit held alongside the annual UN Women gathering. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in high spirits as they applaud new Washington directives on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the gender equality forum with a grave caution that “the poison of patriarchy” is resurgent, after a report shows that opponents of gender equality are systematically eroding historic agreements on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa focused on the traditional family and national sovereignty sparks alarm among rights advocates. In early May, a national leader and spouse open a large assembly to push back on what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A shortly thereafter, another Pan-African conference on traditional morals is held. Both events are graced by leading American and European conservative activists, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to stand up to “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of global institutions. In June, a major religious institution hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in the region, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Advocates remark that the scale of their presence has grown significantly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in July plans to dispose of a vast stockpile of birth control held in a storage facility in Belgium. A global sexual health network states that their destruction will deny millions of women and girls from access to birth control, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “callous and reckless”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains unresolved as the regional government will not allow the destruction of viable medicines.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reviving the global gag rule, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It came as no surprise 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 expand the global gag rule to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. Additional information regarding the policy's widened application are anticipated next year. A expert in child welfare says widening the scope will have “catastrophic impacts”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that new US aid packages being arranged with states on the continent will become conditional on accepting the broadened restrictions.
