A Quintet of Pivotal Events in the Challenge to the Freedoms of Women and Girls in This Past Year.
This time last year, organisations advocating for women's rights were steeling themselves against a second Trump term. Hardly anyone anticipated. The flood and velocity of presidential directives issued from the White House were viewed as a premeditated approach to cause confusion and fear. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as agencies hastened to compensate for the loss left by a major funding freeze. But that was just the beginning.
The American government has been the primary force, supported by relentless activism by far-right organisations using the moment to solidify transnational relationships with like-minded governments.
Often termed the anti-gender movement describes a worldwide alliance of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that aim to roll back gains in a variety of areas. This encompasses abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They achieve this through pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We look at five moments that shaped the welfare, autonomy, and survival of girls and women.
The Dismantling of USAID
In early spring, six weeks after a key American development organization is halted, causing turmoil around the world, a senior US official confirms that over eighty percent of the organization's initiatives will be axed. Career diplomats, past leaders and relief and public health authorities condemn the news, warning that fatalities will ensue. Activists say that the closure of the organization is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and family planning and reproductive care. A multitude of agencies say females will bear the brunt by diminishing aid, especially in war zones. As the year ends, data shows how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with many more millions at risk. Another pair of leading funders follow with their own cuts. A leader of an international advocacy group says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In March, several Christian-right organisations meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a biannual gathering held concurrently with the annual UN Women gathering. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they welcome new Washington directives on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the gender equality forum with a stark warning that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is back, after a report shows that anti-rights actors are deliberately weakening established norms on key women’s rights issues around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the summer, a series of conferences in Africa centered on the conservative family structures and national independence sparks alarm among equality campaigners. In May, a head of state and partner open a major forum to resist what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A few days later, another continental gathering on family values is held. Both events are graced by leading American and European conservative activists, including heads of influential networks. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to stand up to “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of international organizations. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in West Africa, an event that health activists say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Activists observe that the extent of foreign involvement has increased markedly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As health facilities across Africa report they are running out of contraceptives, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in midsummer plans to incinerate millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a European depot. A global sexual health network states that their elimination will deprive millions of women and girls from contraceptive supplies, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “callous and reckless”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains unresolved as host nation officials will not allow 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 commonplace under certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the rule was reinstated 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 expansion of the rule are anticipated next year. A director of a major health partnership says broadening the policy will have “unimaginable effects”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being discussed with African nations will become conditional on accepting the new, wider policy.
