Five Critical Pivotal Events in the Challenge to the Rights of Women and Girls in This Past Year.
In the previous year, women’s rights organisations were anticipating a second Trump term. Hardly anyone anticipated. The flood and velocity of presidential directives originating in the White House were seen as a deliberate tactic to overwhelm and create panic. In many ways it worked – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as agencies hastened to compensate for the loss left by a freeze on international development funds. But this was only the precursor.
The US administration has been the central catalyst, complemented by fervent lobbying efforts by far-right organisations using the moment to forge international alliances with political allies.
This opposition to progressive rights describes a worldwide alliance of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as affluent financiers and clans that seek to undermine advances on numerous fronts. This encompasses reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They pursue this agenda via advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We review five instances that influenced the protection, honor, and existence of women and girls.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In March, a month and a half following a major US aid agency is frozen, causing turmoil around the world, a leading figure in the administration announces that the lion's share of the body's projects will be terminated. US diplomats, ex-presidents and humanitarian and health experts decry the decision, warning that people will die as a result. 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 access to contraception and reproductive health services. Numerous groups say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by reduced funding, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, reports confirm how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with millions more to come. Two other major donor nations follow with their own cuts. A head of a worldwide campaign network 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 March, several conservative religious groups meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a two-day conference held alongside the annual UN Women gathering. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in buoyant mood as they welcome changes in American foreign policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the women’s summit with a grave caution that “the venom of male dominance” is returning, after a study indicates that anti-rights actors are actively undermining established norms on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa centered on the conservative family structures and national independence raises concerns among rights advocates. In May, a head of state and partner open a major forum to push back on what they label external influences undermining local norms. A shortly thereafter, another regional summit on conservative ethics is held. Both events are graced by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker urges African NGOs to resist “radical global social engineering” of international organizations. In June, a global faith group hosts a family strengthening conference in an African nation, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Activists observe that the scale of their presence has increased markedly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in July plans to destroy millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a European depot. A global sexual health network states that their destruction will deny millions of women and girls 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 calculated move to control fertility”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “callous and reckless”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains unresolved as local authorities will not allow usable products to be destroyed.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which halts US aid to groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the ban was reimposed in the first month of the year. The administration also reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in October, the US announces it intends to broaden the scope of the policy to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Further specifics about the broader enforcement are likely forthcoming. A director of a major health partnership says broadening the policy will have “catastrophic impacts”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that new US aid packages being negotiated with countries in Africa will become conditional on accepting the broadened restrictions.
