Five Critical Crucial Incidents in the Challenge to the Freedoms of Women and Girls in This Past Year.
This time last year, organisations advocating for women's rights were bracing themselves for a return of Donald Trump to office. Few were prepared for. The volume and speed of White House mandates emanating from the White House were seen as a calculated strategy to paralyze through overload. The tactic proved effective – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as agencies hastened to fill the gap left by a sudden aid suspension. But that was just the beginning.
The Trump administration has been the main instigator, supported by fervent lobbying efforts by ultra-conservative groups seizing the opportunity to solidify transnational relationships with ideological partners.
The movement against gender equality denotes an international coalition of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as billionaire families and individuals that work to dismantle advances on numerous fronts. This covers abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They achieve this through pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We review five moments that influenced the protection, honor, and existence of females globally.
USAID Dismantled
In March, a month and a half following a major US aid agency is suspended, causing widespread distress, a senior US official states that nearly all of the body's projects will be terminated. US diplomats, former presidents and relief and public health authorities denounce the action, cautioning that mortality will increase. Human rights advocates say that the dismantling of this institution is more than a funding crisis, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Numerous groups say females will bear the brunt by reduced funding, especially in regions of instability. 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 millions more to come. Two other major donor nations follow with their own cuts. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In March, several conservative religious groups meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a strategic summit held in parallel with the annual UN Women gathering. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they welcome shifts in US policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the women’s summit with a stark warning that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is back, after a study indicates that anti-rights actors are systematically eroding historic agreements on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa focused on the conventional household and state autonomy sparks alarm among rights advocates. In early May, a national leader and spouse open a significant conference to push back on what they label external influences undermining local norms. A few days later, another regional summit on traditional morals is held. Both events are participated in by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to push back against “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of global institutions. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in the region, an event that health activists say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Advocates remark that the level of external participation has expanded considerably.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are facing shortages of birth control, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in midsummer plans to dispose of millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a European depot. A leading family planning organization states that their elimination will deprive a huge female population from access to birth control, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains unresolved as the regional government will not allow the destruction of viable medicines.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which cuts American funding for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the policy was restored in the first month of the year. 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. Additional information regarding the policy's widened application are anticipated next year. A director of a major health partnership says widening the scope will have “unimaginable effects”. Pro-choice activists fear that new US aid packages being discussed with African nations will become contingent upon adopting the expanded global gag.
