Five Defining Key Moments in the Challenge to the Rights of Females in This Past Year.
Twelve months prior, groups dedicated to gender equality were steeling themselves against a new Trump administration. Scarcely anyone expected. The volume and speed of White House mandates originating in the White House were seen as a intentional maneuver to induce a state of shock. In many ways it worked – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as organisations scrambled to compensate for the loss left by a freeze on international development funds. But that was just the beginning.
The Trump administration has been the key driver, complemented by intense advocacy work by ultra-conservative groups exploiting the situation to forge international alliances with like-minded governments.
Often termed the anti-gender movement describes a worldwide alliance of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as affluent financiers and clans that aim to roll back gains in a variety of areas. These include reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They achieve this through pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We review five instances that influenced the safety, dignity and lives of the female population.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In the month of March, six weeks after a prominent humanitarian funder is suspended, causing international chaos, a top American diplomat reveals that a vast majority of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. Career diplomats, ex-presidents and relief and public health authorities decry the decision, stating that lives will be lost. Human rights advocates say that the dismantling of this institution is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and family planning and reproductive care. Many organisations say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by reduced funding, especially in war zones. As the year ends, reports confirm 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 announce their own austerity measures. A leader of an international advocacy group says a choice to reduce international development funding is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In March, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a two-day conference held alongside the international conference on women's rights. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in buoyant mood as they welcome shifts in US policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the global conference with a stark warning that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is resurgent, after a report shows that anti-rights actors are systematically eroding longstanding consensus on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the warmer months, a series of conferences in Africa centered on the conservative family structures and national independence raises concerns among equality campaigners. In early May, a head of state and partner open a major forum to resist what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A soon after, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are attended by leading American and European conservative activists, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker calls on African NGOs to stand up to “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of international organizations. In June, a global faith group hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in the region, an event that health activists say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Activists observe that the extent of foreign involvement has expanded considerably.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As medical centers in numerous African countries 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 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 a huge female population from family planning options, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains unresolved as host nation officials are blocking the destruction of viable medicines.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reviving the global gag rule, which cuts American funding for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the rule was reinstated in the first month of the year. The administration also reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. Further specifics about the expansion of the rule are anticipated next year. A expert in child welfare says broadening the policy 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 new, wider policy.
