Five Critical Significant Developments in the Erosion of the Rights of Women and Girls in the Past Year.

A year ago, groups dedicated to gender equality were anticipating a return of Donald Trump to office. Hardly anyone anticipated. The flood and velocity of presidential directives coming out of the White House were interpreted as a calculated strategy to cause confusion and fear. In many ways it worked – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as organisations scrambled to plug the hole left by a major funding freeze. But this merely marked the opening act.

The Trump administration has been the primary force, supported by vigorous campaigning by far-right organisations capitalizing on the climate to forge international alliances with like-minded governments.

The anti-rights movement describes a worldwide alliance of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as billionaire families and individuals that work to dismantle progress across a wide spectrum of issues. These include access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.

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

We review five instances that impacted the security, respect, and well-being of the female population.

USAID Dismantled

In March, a month and a half following a prominent humanitarian funder is frozen, causing international chaos, a leading figure in the administration announces that a vast majority of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. US diplomats, former presidents and relief and public health authorities criticize the move, predicting that mortality will increase. Human rights advocates say that the closure of the organization is not just a financial shortfall, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Numerous groups say the impact on girls and women will be severe by reduced funding, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Two other major donor nations follow with their own cuts. A director of a global justice organization says a choice to reduce international development funding is a move to appease a political ally.

Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit

In the same month, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a two-day conference held concurrently with the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in high spirits as they applaud changes in American foreign policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the gender equality forum with a stark warning that “the venom of male dominance” is returning, after a study indicates that anti-rights actors are systematically eroding established norms on core aspects of gender equality around the world.

African ‘Family Values’ Conferences

Over the warmer months, a series of conferences in Africa centered on the traditional family and national sovereignty sparks alarm among rights advocates. In the start of May, a president and first lady open a major forum to combat what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A few days later, another Pan-African conference on family values is held. Both events are attended by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker calls on African NGOs to resist “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in the region, an event that health activists say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the scale of their presence has increased markedly.

US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives

As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in midsummer plans to incinerate a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a storage facility in Belgium. A major reproductive health federation states that their elimination will deprive 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 imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “callous and reckless”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains in deadlock as host nation officials will not allow usable products to be destroyed.

Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy

Reviving the global gag rule, which cuts American funding for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the rule was reinstated in January. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. 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 encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. Further specifics about the broader enforcement are anticipated next year. A leader in global maternal health says extending the reach will have “devastating consequences”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that new US aid packages being discussed with African nations will become contingent upon adopting the expanded global gag.