A Quintet of Crucial Incidents in the Assault on the Rights of Women and Girls in This Past Year.

A year ago, women’s rights organisations were steeling themselves against a new Trump administration. Hardly anyone anticipated. The sheer number and rapid pace of White House mandates originating in the White House were regarded as a premeditated approach to paralyze through overload. This strategy had its intended impact – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as groups rushed to plug the hole left by a freeze on international development funds. But the situation was about to worsen.

The US administration has been the key driver, supported by relentless activism by far-right organisations seizing the opportunity to forge international alliances with political allies.

The anti-rights movement denotes an international coalition of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as affluent financiers and clans that seek to undermine gains in a variety of areas. 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 promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.

We look at five junctures that influenced the welfare, autonomy, and survival of girls and women.

USAID Effectively Dismantled

In the month of March, a month and a half following a major US aid agency is its funds are blocked, causing turmoil around the world, a senior US official announces that the lion's share of the institution's work will be scrapped. Career diplomats, former presidents and relief and public health authorities denounce the action, cautioning that people will die as a result. Activists say that the dismantling of this institution is more than a funding crisis, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties 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, data shows how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with many more millions at risk. Two other major donor nations initiate similar reductions. A leader of an international advocacy group says a move to cut foreign aid drastically 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 high-end hotel in NYC for a two-day conference held alongside the annual UN Women gathering. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in buoyant mood as they applaud shifts in US policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the gender equality forum with a stark warning that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is back, after a study indicates that groups opposing progressive rights are systematically eroding longstanding consensus on core aspects of gender equality around the world.

Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa

Over the warmer months, a series of conferences in Africa centered on the traditional family and national sovereignty sparks alarm among human rights defenders. In May, a national leader and spouse open a major forum to push back on what they label external influences undermining local norms. A shortly thereafter, another Pan-African conference on family values is held. Both events are attended by leading American and European conservative activists, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker calls on African NGOs to stand up to “radical global social engineering” of global institutions. In the following month, a major religious institution hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in West Africa, an event that health activists say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Campaigners note that the extent of foreign involvement has increased markedly.

American Plan to Burn Birth Control

As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including post-rape care packages, 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 destruction will deny millions of women and girls from family planning options, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “callous and reckless”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains in deadlock as local authorities are blocking the destruction of viable medicines.

Broader Restrictions on Aid

Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which cuts American funding for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the rule was reinstated in January. The administration also reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Additional information regarding the expansion of the rule are anticipated next year. A leader in global maternal health says broadening the policy will have “devastating consequences”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that fresh American assistance deals being discussed with African nations will become dependent on agreeing to the expanded global gag.