Five Landmark Occurrences in the Challenge to the Rights of Females in the Past Year.
Twelve months prior, groups dedicated to gender equality were bracing themselves for a second Trump term. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The sheer number and rapid pace of executive orders coming out of the White House were regarded as a intentional maneuver to cause confusion and fear. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as networks struggled to fill the gap left by a freeze on international development funds. But this was only the precursor.
The Washington leadership has been the key driver, bolstered by fervent lobbying efforts by far-right organisations seizing the opportunity to build worldwide connections with like-minded governments.
The movement against gender equality refers to a global network of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as billionaire families and individuals that seek to undermine progress across a wide spectrum of issues. Areas targeted involve pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They pursue this agenda via advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to push for parity, disseminating propaganda, and supporting ideologically-matched groups.
We review five junctures that affected the safety, dignity and lives of females globally.
USAID Dismantled
In early spring, six weeks after a prominent humanitarian funder is frozen, causing turmoil around the world, a leading figure in the administration announces that the lion's share of the institution's work will be scrapped. American foreign service officers, past leaders and relief and public health authorities decry the decision, cautioning that fatalities will ensue. Human rights advocates say that the demise of the agency is more than a funding crisis, it is a savage attack on human rights and birth control and maternal healthcare. Numerous groups say the impact on girls and women will be severe by reduced funding, especially in war zones. As the year ends, statistics reveal how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Another pair of leading funders initiate similar reductions. A director of a global justice organization says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In the same month, several Christian-right organisations meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a strategic summit held concurrently with the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. 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 somber alert that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is returning, after a analysis demonstrates that anti-rights actors are deliberately weakening historic agreements on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa themed around the conservative family structures and national independence sparks alarm among equality campaigners. In early May, a head of state and partner open a major forum to push back on what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A shortly thereafter, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are graced by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker calls on African NGOs to stand up to “international liberal agenda” of global institutions. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in West Africa, an event that pro-choice campaigners 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 medical centers in numerous African countries report they are running out of contraceptives, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in July plans to dispose of a vast stockpile of birth control held in a warehouse in Europe. A major reproductive health federation states that their elimination will deprive countless females from access to birth control, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. Aid groups propose purchasing 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 the destruction of viable medicines.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which halts US aid to groups that provide, advocate for or advise on 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 rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. 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 policy's widened application are likely forthcoming. A expert in child welfare says widening the scope will have “catastrophic impacts”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that new US aid packages being arranged with states on the continent will become contingent upon adopting the new, wider policy.
