Five Defining Pivotal Events in the Assault on the Freedoms of Women and Girls in This Past Year.
In the previous year, groups dedicated to gender equality were steeling themselves against a second Trump term. Hardly anyone anticipated. The volume and speed of presidential directives issued from the White House were viewed as a calculated strategy to paralyze through overload. The tactic proved effective – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as agencies hastened to plug the hole left by a major funding freeze. But that was just the beginning.
The Trump administration has been the key driver, complemented by vigorous campaigning by deeply conservative factions seizing the opportunity to solidify transnational relationships with like-minded governments.
The movement against gender equality denotes an international coalition of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as affluent financiers and clans that aim to roll back forward movement on multiple topics. Areas targeted involve access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They accomplish their goals by advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to push for parity, disseminating propaganda, and supporting ideologically-matched groups.
We review five episodes that affected the safety, dignity and lives of the female population.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In early spring, six weeks after a major US aid agency is its funds are blocked, causing turmoil around the world, a senior US official announces that a vast majority of the institution's work will be scrapped. Career diplomats, past leaders and humanitarian and health experts condemn the news, stating that people will die as a result. Activists say that the demise of the agency is more than a funding crisis, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and birth control and maternal healthcare. Many organisations say females will bear the brunt by diminishing aid, especially in conflict areas. 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 millions more to come. Additional key contributing countries announce their own austerity measures. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In the same month, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a biannual gathering held alongside the international conference on women's rights. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in buoyant mood as they celebrate changes in American foreign policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the gender equality forum with a somber alert that “the poison of patriarchy” is resurgent, after a report shows that anti-rights actors are deliberately weakening established norms on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa focused on the traditional family and national sovereignty sparks alarm among rights advocates. In May, a national leader and spouse open a significant conference to resist what they label external influences undermining local norms. A soon after, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are participated in by leading American and European conservative activists, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker urges African NGOs to stand up to “radical global social engineering” of international organizations. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a family strengthening conference in the region, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Activists observe that the level of external participation has grown significantly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are running out of contraceptives, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in midsummer plans to destroy a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a warehouse in Europe. A leading family planning organization states that their destruction will deny a huge female population from contraceptive supplies, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains unresolved as the regional government will not allow perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Reviving the global gag rule, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the rule was reinstated in January. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. Further specifics about the expansion of the rule are likely forthcoming. A expert in child welfare says widening the scope will have “devastating consequences”. Pro-choice activists fear that fresh American assistance deals being discussed with African nations will become conditional on accepting the broadened restrictions.