A Quintet of Pivotal Events in the Challenge to the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Past Year.
In the previous year, groups dedicated to gender equality were steeling themselves against a new Trump administration. Scarcely anyone expected. The sheer number and rapid pace of White House mandates issued from the White House were seen as a premeditated approach to overwhelm and create panic. In many ways it worked – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as networks struggled to compensate for the loss left by a freeze on international development funds. But this was only the precursor.
The Trump administration has been the primary force, supported by relentless activism by religious fundamentalist networks using the moment to solidify transnational relationships with sympathetic regimes.
The anti-rights movement refers to a global network of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as billionaire families and individuals that seek to undermine progress across a wide spectrum of issues. This covers reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They accomplish their goals by lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We examine five instances that impacted the protection, honor, and existence of women and girls.
USAID Dismantled
In early spring, shortly after a major US aid agency is halted, causing widespread distress, a senior US official states that nearly all of the body's projects will be terminated. Career diplomats, past leaders and aid and medical specialists criticize the move, predicting that mortality will increase. Activists say that the demise of the agency is not just a financial shortfall, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and birth control and maternal healthcare. Numerous groups say females will bear the brunt by reduced funding, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Another pair of leading funders announce their own austerity measures. 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.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
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 chance to exchange strategies on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in buoyant mood as they celebrate new Washington directives on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the gender equality forum with a somber alert that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is returning, after a study indicates that opponents of gender equality are systematically eroding longstanding consensus on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the warmer months, a series of conferences in Africa themed around the conventional household and state autonomy raises concerns among rights advocates. In the start of May, a national leader and spouse open a significant conference to resist what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A shortly thereafter, another continental gathering on family values is held. Both events are graced by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including heads of influential networks. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to stand up to “radical global social engineering” of international organizations. In June, 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. Activists observe that the level of external participation has grown significantly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are running out of contraceptives, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in midsummer plans to incinerate millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a warehouse in Europe. A leading family planning organization states that their incineration will prevent millions of women and girls from family planning options, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. 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 prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “callous and reckless”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains at a standstill as host nation officials are blocking usable products to be destroyed.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Reviving the global gag rule, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the policy was restored in January. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in October, the US announces it intends to broaden the scope of the policy to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. Further specifics about the policy's widened application are likely forthcoming. A director of a major health partnership says extending the reach will have “unimaginable effects”. Pro-choice activists fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being discussed with African nations will become contingent upon adopting the new, wider policy.
