A Quintet of Landmark Occurrences in the Attack on the Rights of Females in This Past Year.
A year ago, feminist advocacy groups were anticipating a Trump presidency sequel. Hardly anyone anticipated. The volume and speed of administrative decrees issued from the White House were seen as a premeditated approach to cause confusion and fear. This strategy had its intended impact – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as agencies hastened to compensate for the loss left by a freeze on international development funds. But this was only the precursor.
The US administration has been the primary force, supported by intense advocacy work by ultra-conservative groups seizing the opportunity to forge international alliances with like-minded governments.
This opposition to progressive rights refers to a global network of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that seek to undermine progress across a wide spectrum of issues. Areas targeted involve reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They do this by lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We examine five episodes that impacted the welfare, autonomy, and survival of females globally.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In the month of March, a month and a half following a prominent humanitarian funder is its funds are blocked, causing global disruption, a senior US official confirms that over eighty percent of the institution's work will be scrapped. American foreign service officers, ex-presidents and relief and public health authorities denounce the action, predicting that fatalities will ensue. Activists say that the demise of the agency is more than a funding crisis, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and family planning and reproductive care. Numerous groups say females will bear the brunt by diminishing aid, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, reports confirm 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. Additional key contributing countries proceed with parallel slashes. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a choice to reduce international development funding is a move to appease a political ally.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In the same month, several conservative religious groups meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a biannual gathering held concurrently with 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 optimistic frame of mind as they applaud changes in American foreign policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the global conference with a grave caution that “the venom of male dominance” is returning, after a report shows that anti-rights actors are actively undermining longstanding consensus on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa themed around the conventional household and state autonomy sparks alarm among human rights defenders. In the start of May, a head of state and partner open a significant conference to resist what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A soon after, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are participated in by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including heads of influential networks. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to stand up to “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of global institutions. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in West Africa, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Advocates remark that the level of external participation has increased markedly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are running out of contraceptives, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in July plans to incinerate a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a storage facility in Belgium. 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 ideological decision “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” 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 reach their intended destinations, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains in deadlock as host nation officials refuse to permit usable products to be destroyed.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reviving the global gag rule, which halts US aid to groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is commonplace under 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 October, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. Further specifics about the expansion of the rule are likely forthcoming. A director of a major health partnership says broadening the policy will have “catastrophic impacts”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being negotiated with countries in Africa will become dependent on agreeing to the broadened restrictions.
