Five Defining Key Moments in the Rollback of the Rights of Women and Girls in This Past Year.
In the previous year, women’s rights organisations were steeling themselves against a second Trump term. Hardly anyone anticipated. The torrent and swiftness of presidential directives coming out of the White House were interpreted as a deliberate tactic to overwhelm and create panic. In many ways it worked – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as networks struggled to plug the hole left by a freeze on international development funds. But this was only the precursor.
The Trump administration has been the main instigator, bolstered by intense advocacy work by far-right organisations exploiting the situation to forge international alliances with ideological partners.
The anti-rights movement denotes an international coalition of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that work to dismantle forward movement on multiple topics. This encompasses abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They pursue this agenda via advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We look at five moments that influenced the welfare, autonomy, and survival of females globally.
The Dismantling of USAID
In the month of March, shortly after a key American development organization is suspended, causing widespread distress, a top American diplomat announces that a vast majority of the institution's work will be scrapped. American foreign service officers, ex-presidents and humanitarian and health experts criticize the move, cautioning that mortality will increase. Activists say that the demise of the agency is not just a financial shortfall, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and birth control and maternal healthcare. Numerous groups say the impact on girls and women will be severe by waning support, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, data shows how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with many more millions at risk. Additional key contributing countries announce their own austerity measures. A leader of an international advocacy group says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
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 strategic summit held alongside the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in high spirits as they applaud new Washington directives on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the women’s summit with a somber alert that “the venom of male dominance” is returning, after a study indicates that anti-rights actors are systematically eroding established norms on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the summer, a cluster of meetings in Africa centered on the traditional family and national sovereignty raises concerns among equality campaigners. In May, a president and first lady open a large assembly to push back on what they label external influences undermining local norms. A shortly thereafter, another Pan-African conference on traditional morals is held. Both events are participated in by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including heads of influential networks. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to stand up to “international liberal agenda” of international organizations. In the following month, a major religious institution hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in the region, an event that reproductive rights advocates 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 health facilities across 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 significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a storage facility in Belgium. A global sexual health network states that their destruction will deny 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 politically-motivated move “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “callous and reckless”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains unresolved as local authorities will not allow perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which halts US aid to groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the ban was reimposed in January. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in October, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Additional information regarding the policy's widened application are anticipated next year. A leader in global maternal health says widening the scope will have “catastrophic impacts”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that fresh American assistance deals being negotiated with countries in Africa will become conditional on accepting the new, wider policy.
