Five Pivotal Events in the Assault on the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Past Year.
In the previous year, groups dedicated to gender equality were bracing themselves for a return of Donald Trump to office. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The torrent and swiftness of White House mandates emanating from the White House were viewed as a calculated strategy to paralyze through overload. The tactic proved effective – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as agencies hastened to address the shortfall left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But the situation was about to worsen.
The Washington leadership has been the main instigator, aided by intense advocacy work by far-right organisations using the moment to strengthen global ties with like-minded governments.
The movement against gender equality signifies a transnational grouping of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as billionaire families and individuals that aim to roll back progress across a wide spectrum of issues. Areas targeted involve pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They achieve this through lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We examine five instances that affected the security, respect, and well-being of women and girls.
The Demise of a Major Aid Agency
In the month of March, shortly after a prominent humanitarian funder is frozen, causing global disruption, a top American diplomat announces that nearly all of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. Career diplomats, past leaders and aid and medical specialists condemn the news, stating that fatalities will ensue. Rights defenders say that the closure of the organization is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and birth control and maternal healthcare. Numerous groups say the impact on girls and women will be severe by diminishing aid, especially in war zones. As the year ends, evidence indicates how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with many more millions at risk. Another pair of leading funders follow with their own cuts. A leader of an international advocacy group says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is a move to appease a political ally.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In March, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a biannual gathering held concurrently with the international conference on women's rights. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in high spirits as they celebrate changes in American foreign policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the global conference with a somber alert that “the venom of male dominance” is back, after a study indicates that anti-rights actors are actively undermining historic agreements on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the summer, a series of conferences in Africa centered on the traditional family and national sovereignty sparks alarm among equality campaigners. In the start of May, a head of state and partner open a major forum to resist what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A few days later, another regional summit 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 push back against “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of multilateral bodies. In June, a prominent church hosts a family strengthening conference in the region, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Advocates remark that the extent of foreign involvement has grown significantly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As health facilities across Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in July plans to destroy millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a storage facility in Belgium. A global sexual health network states that their incineration will prevent millions of women and girls from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “callous and reckless”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains at a standstill as the regional government refuse to permit usable products to be destroyed.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which cuts American funding for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the policy was restored in the first month of the year. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. More details on the broader enforcement are anticipated next year. A expert in child welfare says widening the scope will have “unimaginable effects”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that new US aid packages being negotiated with countries in Africa will become conditional on accepting the expanded global gag.
