A Quintet of Pivotal Events in the Attack on the Rights of Females in This Past Year.
A year ago, groups dedicated to gender equality were anticipating a new Trump administration. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The volume and speed of White House mandates issued from the White House were regarded as a premeditated approach to overwhelm and create panic. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as agencies hastened to plug the hole left by a sudden aid suspension. But this merely marked the opening act.
The Washington leadership has been the key driver, complemented by fervent lobbying efforts by ultra-conservative groups exploiting the situation to forge international alliances with sympathetic regimes.
Often termed the anti-gender movement refers to a global network of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as affluent financiers and clans that work to dismantle gains in a variety of areas. Areas targeted involve abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They do this by influencing policymakers, funding litigation, undermining global initiatives to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We examine five junctures that shaped the welfare, autonomy, and survival of girls and women.
The Dismantling of USAID
In early spring, shortly after a prominent humanitarian funder is suspended, causing turmoil around the world, a senior US official confirms that over eighty percent of the body's projects will be terminated. US diplomats, former presidents and humanitarian and health experts decry the decision, stating that fatalities will ensue. Human rights advocates say that the dismantling of this institution is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a savage attack on human rights and birth control and maternal healthcare. Numerous groups say females will bear the brunt by reduced funding, especially in war zones. As the year ends, data shows 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. Additional key contributing countries proceed with parallel slashes. A director of a global justice organization says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In March, several Christian-right organisations meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a biannual gathering held alongside the international conference on women's rights. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they applaud shifts in US policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the gender equality forum with a grave caution that “the venom of male dominance” is returning, after a study indicates that anti-rights actors are actively undermining historic agreements on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa focused on the conservative family structures and national independence raises concerns among human rights defenders. In the start of May, a president and first lady open a large assembly to push back on what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A shortly thereafter, another Pan-African conference on traditional morals is held. Both events are graced by leading American and European conservative activists, including heads of influential networks. One speaker calls on African NGOs to resist “radical global social engineering” of international organizations. In the following month, a prominent church hosts a family strengthening conference in an African nation, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Activists observe that the extent of foreign involvement has grown significantly.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa 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 dispose of millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a European depot. A major reproductive health federation states that their destruction will deny countless females from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. 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 renowned doctors' group calls it “heartless and dangerous”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains in deadlock as local authorities refuse to permit perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which halts US aid to groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the rule was reinstated in the first month of the year. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in October, the US announces it intends to broaden the scope of the policy to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. More details on the broader enforcement are likely forthcoming. A expert in child welfare says broadening the policy will have “unimaginable effects”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that new US aid packages being discussed with African nations will become conditional on accepting the expanded global gag.
