Five Significant Developments in the Erosion of the Rights of Women and Girls in the Past Year.
This time last year, women’s rights organisations were anticipating a second Trump term. Scarcely anyone expected. The torrent and swiftness of administrative decrees originating in the White House were viewed as a deliberate tactic to overwhelm and create panic. In many ways it worked – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as agencies hastened to address the shortfall left by a freeze on international development funds. But the situation was about to worsen.
The US administration has been the main instigator, aided by vigorous campaigning by far-right organisations seizing the opportunity to forge international alliances with sympathetic regimes.
The anti-rights movement signifies a transnational grouping of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as affluent financiers and clans that work to dismantle forward movement on multiple topics. This encompasses access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They pursue this agenda via pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We analyze five junctures that shaped the protection, honor, and existence of girls and women.
The Dismantling of USAID
In early spring, shortly after a key American development organization is halted, causing international chaos, a leading figure in the administration reveals that over eighty percent of the organization's initiatives will be axed. US diplomats, ex-presidents and humanitarian and health experts denounce the action, cautioning that people will die as a result. Activists say that the demise of the agency is more than a funding crisis, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and access to contraception and reproductive health services. A multitude of agencies say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by diminishing aid, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, reports confirm how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Two other major donor nations initiate similar reductions. 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 the same month, several conservative religious groups meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a two-day conference held concurrently with the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in high spirits as they applaud 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 back, after a report shows that opponents of gender equality are systematically eroding historic agreements on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the summer, a cluster of meetings in Africa centered on the conventional household and state autonomy triggers anxiety among rights advocates. In May, a president and first lady open a significant conference to resist what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A shortly thereafter, another regional summit on family values is held. Both events are attended by leading American and European conservative activists, including heads of influential networks. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to stand up to “international liberal agenda” of multilateral bodies. In June, a prominent church hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in the region, an event that health activists say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Activists observe that the extent of foreign involvement has grown significantly.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are running out of contraceptives, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in July plans to destroy a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a warehouse in Europe. A major reproductive health federation states that their destruction will deny 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 forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains at a standstill as the regional government are blocking the destruction of viable medicines.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reviving the global gag rule, which halts US aid to groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the rule was reinstated in January. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in October, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Further specifics about the expansion of the rule are likely forthcoming. A director of a major health partnership says widening the scope will have “devastating consequences”. Pro-choice activists fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being arranged with states on the continent will become dependent on agreeing to the broadened restrictions.