Five Critical Crucial Incidents in the Challenge to the Freedoms of Women and Girls in This Past Year.
This time last year, women’s rights organisations were bracing themselves for a Trump presidency sequel. Few were prepared for. The torrent and swiftness of White House mandates coming out of the White House were seen as a deliberate tactic to cause confusion and fear. In many ways it worked – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as networks struggled to address the shortfall left by a freeze on international development funds. But this was only the precursor.
The American government has been the key driver, aided by fervent lobbying efforts by deeply conservative factions seizing the opportunity to forge international alliances with political allies.
This opposition to progressive rights denotes an international coalition of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as affluent financiers and clans that seek to undermine gains in a variety of areas. This covers pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They accomplish their goals by lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We analyze five moments that impacted the welfare, autonomy, and survival of girls and women.
The Demise of a Major Aid Agency
In March, shortly after a prominent humanitarian funder is suspended, causing widespread distress, a leading figure in the administration states that over eighty percent of the institution's work will be scrapped. American foreign service officers, former presidents and humanitarian and health experts condemn the news, predicting that mortality will increase. Rights defenders say that the closure of the organization is not just a financial shortfall, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and family planning and reproductive care. Numerous groups say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by diminishing aid, especially in conflict areas. 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. Additional key contributing countries follow with their own cuts. A director of a global justice organization says a move to cut foreign aid drastically 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 luxury Manhattan venue for a two-day conference held alongside the international conference on women's rights. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in buoyant mood as they applaud shifts in US policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the women’s summit with a somber alert that “the poison of patriarchy” is returning, after a report shows that groups opposing progressive rights are systematically eroding historic agreements on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the summer, a series of conferences in Africa themed around the conservative family structures and national independence sparks alarm among rights advocates. In the start of May, a president and first lady open a major forum to resist what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A soon after, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics 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 global faith group hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in the region, an event that health activists say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Campaigners note that the scale of their presence has grown significantly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
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 destroy a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a storage facility in Belgium. A global sexual health network states that their destruction will deny millions of women and girls from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains at a standstill as the regional government are blocking the destruction of viable medicines.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which halts US aid to groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It was anticipated 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 cover diversity programmes. More details on the expansion of the rule are likely forthcoming. A expert in child welfare says widening the scope will have “devastating consequences”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that new US aid packages being arranged with states on the continent will become contingent upon adopting the new, wider policy.
