A Quintet of Key Moments in the Rollback of the Rights of Women and Girls in the Past Year.
In the previous year, feminist advocacy groups were steeling themselves against a new Trump administration. Scarcely anyone expected. The sheer number and rapid pace of executive orders originating in the White House were regarded as a premeditated approach to paralyze through overload. In many ways it worked – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as organisations scrambled to address the shortfall left by a freeze on international development funds. But that was just the beginning.
The American government has been the main instigator, bolstered by fervent lobbying efforts by religious fundamentalist networks using the moment to strengthen global ties with political allies.
The anti-rights movement denotes an international coalition of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as affluent financiers and clans 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 analyze five junctures that influenced the security, respect, and well-being of girls and women.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In March, shortly after a key American development organization is its funds are blocked, causing global disruption, a leading figure in the administration states that over eighty percent of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. Career diplomats, ex-presidents and relief and public health authorities denounce the action, cautioning that people will die as a result. Human rights advocates say that the demise of the agency is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a savage attack on human rights and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Many organisations say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by waning support, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, evidence indicates how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with millions more to come. Another pair of leading funders announce their own austerity measures. A director of a global justice organization says a choice to reduce international development funding is a move to appease a political ally.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In March, several conservative religious groups meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a strategic summit held in parallel with the international conference on women's rights. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in buoyant mood as they celebrate changes in American foreign policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the women’s summit with a grave caution that “the poison of patriarchy” is back, after a report shows that anti-rights actors are deliberately weakening established norms on key women’s rights issues around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa focused on the traditional family and national sovereignty sparks alarm among rights advocates. In early May, a head of state and partner open a significant conference to resist 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 American and European conservative activists, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to stand up to “international liberal agenda” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a prominent church hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in West Africa, an event that health activists say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Activists observe that the level of external participation has increased markedly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are running out of contraceptives, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in July plans to dispose of a vast stockpile of birth control held in a warehouse in Europe. A major reproductive health federation states that their elimination will deprive a huge female population from access to birth control, 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 “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “callous and reckless”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains at a standstill as local authorities are blocking usable products to be destroyed.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which cuts American funding for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It came as no surprise 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 governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. More details on the broader enforcement are anticipated next year. A director of a major health partnership says broadening the policy will have “devastating consequences”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that new US aid packages being negotiated with countries in Africa will become contingent upon adopting the expanded global gag.
