A Quintet of Key Moments in the Rollback of the Freedoms of Women and Girls in This Past Year.
In the previous year, organisations advocating for women's rights were steeling themselves against a second Trump term. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The volume and speed of administrative decrees emanating from the White House were viewed as a calculated strategy to paralyze through overload. The tactic proved effective – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as networks struggled to compensate for the loss left by a major funding freeze. But the situation was about to worsen.
The American government has been the main instigator, supported by intense advocacy work by deeply conservative factions seizing the opportunity to solidify transnational relationships with sympathetic regimes.
Often termed the anti-gender movement denotes an international coalition of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as billionaire families and individuals that strive to weaken gains in a variety of areas. This covers reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They achieve this through advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We look at five instances that influenced the welfare, autonomy, and survival of girls and women.
USAID Dismantled
In March, a month and a half following a key American development organization is its funds are blocked, causing global disruption, a leading figure in the administration announces that a vast majority of the body's projects will be terminated. American foreign service officers, ex-presidents and aid and medical specialists condemn the news, warning that people will die as a result. Rights defenders 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 females will bear the brunt by shrinking assistance, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, statistics reveal how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Another pair of leading funders announce their own austerity measures. A leader of an international advocacy group says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance 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 biannual gathering held in parallel with the annual UN Women gathering. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they applaud changes in American foreign policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the gender equality forum with a somber alert that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is returning, after a report shows that groups opposing progressive rights are actively undermining longstanding consensus on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa themed around the traditional family and national sovereignty raises concerns among equality campaigners. In May, a national leader and spouse open a significant conference to resist what they label external influences undermining local norms. A shortly thereafter, another continental gathering on family values is held. Both events are attended by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including heads of influential networks. One speaker calls on African NGOs to stand up to “international liberal agenda” of international organizations. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in the region, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Campaigners note that the scale of their presence has expanded considerably.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As health facilities across Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in July plans to dispose of a vast stockpile of birth control held in a European depot. A leading family planning organization states that their incineration will prevent 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 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 be distributed to those in need, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains in deadlock as the regional government are blocking perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the rule was reinstated in January. The administration also reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to broaden the scope of the policy to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. Further specifics about the policy's widened application are likely forthcoming. A expert in child welfare says extending the reach will have “unimaginable effects”. Pro-choice activists fear that new US aid packages being arranged with states on the continent will become contingent upon adopting the expanded global gag.
