A Quintet of Significant Developments in the Challenge to the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Past Year.
This time last year, groups dedicated to gender equality were steeling themselves against a second Trump term. Few were prepared for. The torrent and swiftness of White House mandates coming out of the White House were viewed as a calculated strategy to cause confusion and fear. In many ways it worked – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as groups rushed to plug the hole left by a sudden aid suspension. But this was only the precursor.
The American government has been the main instigator, complemented by relentless activism by far-right organisations seizing the opportunity to solidify transnational relationships with like-minded governments.
Often termed the anti-gender movement describes a worldwide alliance of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that strive to weaken progress across a wide spectrum of issues. This encompasses 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 foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We analyze five moments that shaped the security, respect, and well-being of women and girls.
USAID Dismantled
In March, six weeks after a major US aid agency is suspended, causing turmoil around the world, a top American diplomat confirms that the lion's share of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. US diplomats, past leaders and humanitarian and health experts denounce the action, stating that fatalities will ensue. Rights defenders say that the dismantling of this institution is more than a funding crisis, it is a savage attack on human rights and family planning and reproductive care. Numerous groups say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by reduced funding, especially in war zones. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with millions more to come. Another pair of leading funders follow with their own cuts. A leader of an international advocacy group says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance 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 luxury Manhattan venue for a two-day conference held alongside the international conference on women's rights. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in high spirits as they welcome shifts in US policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the global conference with a somber alert that “the venom of male dominance” is back, after a report shows that opponents of gender equality are deliberately weakening established norms on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa focused on the traditional family and national sovereignty sparks alarm among rights advocates. In early May, a national leader and spouse open a major forum to push back on what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A shortly thereafter, another Pan-African conference on traditional morals is held. Both events are participated in by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker calls on African NGOs to stand up to “radical global social engineering” of global institutions. In June, a global faith group hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in West Africa, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Activists observe that the level of external participation has increased markedly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
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 incinerate a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a European depot. A major reproductive health federation states that their destruction will deny countless females from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “callous and reckless”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains unresolved as the regional government are blocking the destruction of viable medicines.
‘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 typical of certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the rule was reinstated 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 expand the global gag rule to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. More details on the expansion of the rule are anticipated next year. A director of a major health partnership says widening the scope will have “unimaginable effects”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that new US aid packages being arranged with states on the continent will become contingent upon adopting the new, wider policy.
