Five Landmark Occurrences in the Rollback of the Freedoms of Women and Girls in This Past Year.
A year ago, organisations advocating for women's rights were steeling themselves against a second Trump term. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The torrent and swiftness of administrative decrees emanating from the White House were viewed as a intentional maneuver to paralyze through overload. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as organisations scrambled to address the shortfall left by a sudden aid suspension. But this merely marked the opening act.
The Washington leadership has been the key driver, aided by vigorous campaigning by ultra-conservative groups using the moment to solidify transnational relationships with ideological partners.
The movement against gender equality refers to a global network of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as billionaire families and individuals that seek to undermine gains in a variety of areas. These include abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They achieve this through lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We analyze five moments that influenced the security, respect, and well-being of the female population.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In early spring, six weeks after a key American development organization is suspended, causing widespread distress, a senior US official announces that a vast majority of the organization's initiatives will be axed. Career diplomats, past leaders and aid and medical specialists denounce the action, cautioning that lives will be lost. Human rights advocates say that the dismantling of this institution is more than a funding crisis, it is a savage attack on human rights and birth control and maternal healthcare. Numerous groups say the impact on girls and women will be severe by reduced funding, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, evidence indicates how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Another pair of leading funders follow with their own cuts. A director of a global justice organization says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is a move to appease a political ally.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In the same month, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a biannual gathering held in parallel with the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in buoyant mood as they applaud new Washington directives on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the gender equality forum with a grave caution that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is back, after a analysis demonstrates that groups opposing progressive rights are systematically eroding established norms on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa themed around the conventional household and state autonomy sparks alarm among equality campaigners. In May, a head of state and partner open a major forum to push back on what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A soon after, another Pan-African conference on family values is held. Both events are participated in by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to resist “radical global social engineering” of global institutions. In June, a global faith group hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in West Africa, 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.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in midsummer plans to dispose of a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a warehouse in Europe. A major reproductive health federation states that their elimination will deprive countless females 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 deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains unresolved as host nation officials are blocking usable products to be destroyed.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which halts US aid to groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the policy was restored 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 extend the restrictions to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Additional information regarding the broader enforcement are likely forthcoming. A director of a major health partnership says extending the reach will have “devastating consequences”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that new US aid packages being arranged with states on the continent will become dependent on agreeing to the new, wider policy.
