Five Defining Significant Developments in the Rollback of the Rights of Females in the Past Year.
Twelve months prior, groups dedicated to gender equality were bracing themselves for a return of Donald Trump to office. Few were prepared for. The sheer number and rapid pace of executive orders issued from the White House were viewed as a calculated strategy to overwhelm and create panic. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as agencies hastened to compensate for the loss left by a sudden aid suspension. But that was just the beginning.
The American government has been the central catalyst, aided by vigorous campaigning by religious fundamentalist networks using the moment to forge international alliances with sympathetic regimes.
The anti-rights movement signifies a transnational grouping of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that aim to roll back progress across a wide spectrum of issues. Areas targeted involve pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They pursue this agenda via advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We analyze five moments that shaped the protection, honor, and existence of girls and women.
USAID Dismantled
In the month of March, shortly after a prominent humanitarian funder is its funds are blocked, causing turmoil around the world, a senior US official announces that a vast majority of the organization's initiatives will be axed. Career diplomats, past leaders and aid and medical specialists decry the decision, warning that lives will be lost. Rights defenders say that the demise of the agency is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and family planning and reproductive care. Many organisations say the impact on girls and women will be severe by reduced funding, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, reports confirm how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Two other major donor nations follow with their own cuts. A director of a global justice organization says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance 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 upmarket New York hotel for a two-day conference held concurrently with the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. 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 welcome shifts in US policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the women’s summit with a somber alert that “the poison of patriarchy” is resurgent, after a study indicates that anti-rights actors are actively undermining established norms on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa centered on the conservative family structures and national independence raises concerns among equality campaigners. In May, a president and first lady open a large assembly to resist what they label external influences undermining local norms. A few days later, another regional summit on family values is held. Both events are attended by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to stand up to “international liberal agenda” of global institutions. 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 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 post-rape care packages, the US announces in midsummer plans to destroy millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a storage facility in Belgium. A leading family planning organization states that their elimination will deprive countless females from contraceptive supplies, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “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”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains unresolved as host nation officials refuse to permit perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the rule was reinstated in the first month of the year. The administration also reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. 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 anticipated next year. A expert in child welfare says broadening the policy will have “devastating consequences”. Pro-choice activists fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being negotiated with countries in Africa will become contingent upon adopting the new, wider policy.
