Five Crucial Incidents in the Assault on the Rights of Females in This Past Year.
Twelve months prior, women’s rights organisations were anticipating a second Trump term. Few were prepared for. The sheer number and rapid pace of administrative decrees originating in the White House were viewed as a calculated strategy to paralyze through overload. In many ways it worked – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as agencies hastened to fill the gap left by a sudden aid suspension. But this merely marked the opening act.
The Washington leadership has been the central catalyst, supported by relentless activism by far-right organisations seizing the opportunity to solidify transnational relationships with political allies.
Often termed the anti-gender movement denotes an international coalition of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that seek to undermine gains in a variety of areas. These include abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They do this by pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We examine five instances that influenced the security, respect, and well-being of the female population.
USAID Dismantled
In the month of March, six weeks after a major US aid agency is frozen, causing international chaos, a senior US official announces that nearly all of the body's projects will be terminated. US diplomats, former presidents and humanitarian and health experts condemn the news, stating that fatalities will ensue. Human rights advocates say that the closure of the organization is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a savage attack on human rights and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Numerous groups say the impact on girls and women will be severe by diminishing aid, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, data shows how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Another pair of leading funders follow with their own cuts. A director of a global justice organization says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a move to appease a political ally.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In March, several faith-based advocacy networks 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 oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they applaud changes in American foreign policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the gender equality forum with a somber alert that “the poison of patriarchy” is back, after a study indicates that groups opposing progressive rights are actively undermining longstanding consensus on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa centered on the conservative family structures and national independence sparks alarm among human rights defenders. In early May, a head of state and partner open a large assembly to push back on what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A shortly thereafter, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are graced by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including heads of influential networks. One speaker calls on African NGOs to resist “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a prominent church hosts a family strengthening conference in an African nation, an event that health activists say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Campaigners note that the level of external participation has grown significantly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in midsummer plans to dispose of a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a warehouse in Europe. A leading family planning organization states that their destruction will deny millions of women and girls from contraceptive supplies, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “callous and reckless”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains unresolved as the regional government refuse to permit usable products to be destroyed.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, 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 anticipated when the ban was reimposed in the first month of the year. 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 include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. More details on the policy's widened application are anticipated next year. A director of a major health partnership says broadening the policy will have “unimaginable effects”. Pro-choice activists fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being negotiated with countries in Africa will become contingent upon adopting the broadened restrictions.
