Five Pivotal Events in the Attack on the Rights of Females in This Past Year.

A year ago, groups dedicated to gender equality were steeling themselves against a second Trump term. Hardly anyone anticipated. The flood and velocity of administrative decrees emanating from the White House were viewed as a premeditated approach to overwhelm and create panic. This strategy had its intended impact – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as groups rushed to compensate for the loss left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But this was only the precursor.

The Washington leadership has been the central catalyst, bolstered by relentless activism by deeply conservative factions exploiting the situation to solidify transnational relationships with sympathetic regimes.

The anti-rights movement signifies a transnational grouping of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as affluent financiers and clans that aim to roll back gains in a variety of areas. This covers access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.

They do this by pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.

We review five episodes that influenced the welfare, autonomy, and survival of girls and women.

USAID Dismantled

In early spring, a month and a half following a prominent humanitarian funder is halted, causing widespread distress, a top American diplomat announces that nearly all of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. American foreign service officers, past leaders and relief and public health authorities denounce the action, warning that lives will be lost. Activists say that the demise of the agency is more than a funding crisis, it is a savage attack on human rights and family planning and reproductive care. Many organisations say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by diminishing aid, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, reports confirm how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with many more millions at risk. Two other major donor nations proceed with parallel slashes. A leader of an international advocacy group says a choice to reduce international development funding is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.

Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference

In March, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a biannual gathering held concurrently with the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in high spirits as they applaud new Washington directives on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the women’s summit with a stark warning that “the venom of male dominance” is returning, after a analysis demonstrates that anti-rights actors are deliberately weakening established norms on core aspects of gender equality around the world.

Summits Promoting Conservative Norms

Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa themed around the conservative family structures and national independence raises concerns among rights advocates. In early May, a head of state and partner open a major forum to resist what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A few days later, another regional summit on traditional morals is held. Both events are attended by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker calls on African NGOs to push back against “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of international organizations. In June, a major religious institution hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in the region, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Advocates remark that the level of external participation has increased markedly.

American Plan to Burn Birth Control

As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are running out of contraceptives, including prophylaxis for assault victims, 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 incineration will prevent millions of women and girls from access to birth control, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “heartless and dangerous”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains in deadlock as host nation officials refuse to permit usable products to be destroyed.

‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded

Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which prohibits Washington's support for 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 the autumn, the US announces it intends to broaden the scope of the policy to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Further specifics about the broader enforcement are likely forthcoming. A leader in global maternal health says widening the scope will have “unimaginable effects”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being arranged with states on the continent will become contingent upon adopting the new, wider policy.