Five Key Moments in the Assault on the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Past Year.
This time last year, groups dedicated to gender equality were preparing for a return of Donald Trump to office. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The torrent and swiftness of executive orders emanating from the White House were seen as a intentional maneuver to paralyze through overload. This strategy had its intended impact – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as groups rushed to compensate for the loss left by a major funding freeze. But this was only the precursor.
The Washington leadership has been the key driver, aided by fervent lobbying efforts by deeply conservative factions exploiting the situation to forge international alliances with sympathetic regimes.
Often termed the anti-gender movement describes a worldwide alliance of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that aim to roll back progress across a wide spectrum of issues. This covers 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 advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We review five episodes that impacted the protection, honor, and existence of girls and women.
USAID Dismantled
In the month of March, shortly after a major US aid agency is frozen, causing widespread distress, a senior US official confirms that over eighty percent of the organization's initiatives will be axed. American foreign service officers, former presidents and aid and medical specialists criticize the move, warning that mortality will increase. Human rights advocates say that the dismantling of this institution is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and access to contraception and reproductive health services. A multitude of agencies say females will bear the brunt by diminishing aid, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with millions more to come. Another pair of leading funders proceed with parallel slashes. A director of a global justice organization says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In the same month, several Christian-right organisations meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a two-day conference held in parallel with the international conference on women's rights. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in high spirits as they celebrate shifts in US policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the global conference with a stark warning that “the venom of male dominance” is returning, after a analysis demonstrates that groups opposing progressive rights are deliberately weakening established norms on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the warmer months, a series of conferences in Africa centered on the conventional household and state autonomy sparks alarm among rights advocates. In early May, a national leader and spouse open a significant conference to push back on what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A few days later, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are participated in by leading American and European conservative activists, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to push back against “international liberal agenda” of multilateral bodies. In June, a prominent church hosts a family strengthening conference in an African nation, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Campaigners note that the extent of foreign involvement has increased markedly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are running out of contraceptives, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in midsummer plans to incinerate millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a storage facility in Belgium. A major reproductive health federation states that their elimination will deprive a huge female population from family planning options, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains at a standstill as the regional government will not allow usable products to be destroyed.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which halts US aid to groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the ban was reimposed in January. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in the autumn, 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. Additional information regarding the expansion of the rule are likely forthcoming. A expert in child welfare says extending the reach will have “unimaginable effects”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that fresh American assistance deals being discussed with African nations will become contingent upon adopting the expanded global gag.
