Five Defining Pivotal Events in the Challenge to the Freedoms of Women and Girls in This Past Year.
Twelve months prior, organisations advocating for women's rights were bracing themselves for a new Trump administration. Few were prepared for. The volume and speed of presidential directives coming out of the White House were seen as a premeditated approach to induce a state of shock. In many ways it worked – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as networks struggled to plug the hole left by a major funding freeze. But this merely marked the opening act.
The Washington leadership has been the key driver, bolstered by vigorous campaigning by ultra-conservative groups using the moment to strengthen global ties with sympathetic regimes.
This opposition to progressive rights signifies a transnational grouping 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 reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They pursue this agenda via pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We analyze five episodes that shaped the safety, dignity and lives of women and girls.
USAID Dismantled
In the month of March, a month and a half following a major US aid agency is suspended, causing international chaos, a senior US official announces that a vast majority of the organization's initiatives will be axed. American foreign service officers, former presidents and humanitarian and health experts criticize the move, predicting that people will die as a result. Rights defenders say that the closure of the organization is more than a funding crisis, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and family planning and reproductive care. Many organisations say the impact on girls and women will be severe by diminishing aid, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, reports confirm how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Two other major donor nations follow with their own cuts. A leader of an international advocacy group says a choice to reduce international development funding is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In the same month, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a strategic summit held alongside the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in buoyant mood as they applaud shifts in US policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the gender equality forum with a grave caution that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is back, after a report shows that groups opposing progressive rights are actively undermining established norms on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the warmer months, a series of conferences in Africa themed around the traditional family and national sovereignty triggers anxiety among human rights defenders. In the start of May, a head of state and partner open a large assembly to combat what they label external influences undermining local norms. A soon after, another continental gathering on family values 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 push back against “international liberal agenda” of international organizations. In the following month, a prominent church hosts a family strengthening conference in the region, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Advocates remark that the scale of their presence has expanded considerably.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As health facilities across Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, 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 destruction will deny countless females from access to birth control, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “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 refuses all offers. The situation remains in deadlock as host nation officials refuse to permit perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reviving the global gag rule, which cuts American funding for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is typical of 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 October, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. Further specifics about the expansion of the rule are likely forthcoming. A expert in child welfare says broadening the policy will have “unimaginable effects”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that fresh American assistance deals being negotiated with countries in Africa will become dependent on agreeing to the broadened restrictions.
