A Quintet of Crucial Incidents in the Rollback of the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Past Year.
This time last year, groups dedicated to gender equality were steeling themselves against a return of Donald Trump to office. Hardly anyone anticipated. The volume and speed of administrative decrees coming out of the White House were seen as a premeditated approach to cause confusion and fear. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as agencies hastened to fill the gap left by a major funding freeze. But this was only the precursor.
The Washington leadership has been the key driver, supported by relentless activism by deeply conservative factions exploiting the situation to strengthen global ties with sympathetic regimes.
Often termed the anti-gender movement describes a worldwide alliance of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that seek to undermine gains in a variety of areas. Areas targeted involve access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They do this by lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We review five junctures that impacted the security, respect, and well-being of girls and women.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In the month of March, a month and a half following a major US aid agency is its funds are blocked, causing global disruption, a senior US official announces that the lion's share of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. Career diplomats, former presidents and aid and medical specialists criticize the move, predicting that fatalities will ensue. Human rights advocates say that the closure of the organization is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and family planning and reproductive care. A multitude of agencies say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by shrinking assistance, 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 a far greater catastrophe looming. Two other major donor nations initiate similar reductions. 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 concurrently with the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in high spirits as they celebrate changes in American foreign policy 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 resurgent, after a analysis demonstrates that opponents of gender equality are actively undermining historic agreements on key women’s rights issues around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the warmer months, a series of conferences in Africa centered on the conservative family structures and national independence triggers anxiety among rights advocates. 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 few days later, another regional summit on family values is held. Both events are attended by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker calls on African NGOs to resist “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of global institutions. In June, a major religious institution hosts a family strengthening conference in West Africa, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Activists observe that the level of external participation has expanded considerably.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in midsummer 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 countless females from access to birth control, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “callous and reckless”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains unresolved as the regional government will not allow usable products to be destroyed.
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 widely expected when the rule was reinstated in January. 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 broader enforcement are likely forthcoming. A leader in global maternal health 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 dependent on agreeing to the expanded global gag.
