Five Defining Crucial Incidents in the Assault on the Rights of Women and Girls in This Past Year.

A year ago, organisations advocating for women's rights were preparing for a return of Donald Trump to office. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The volume and speed of executive orders originating in the White House were viewed as a deliberate tactic to induce a state of shock. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as organisations scrambled to fill the gap left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But that was just the beginning.

The Washington leadership has been the key driver, complemented by intense advocacy work by religious fundamentalist networks seizing the opportunity to forge international alliances with sympathetic regimes.

The anti-rights movement describes a worldwide alliance of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that aim to roll back forward movement on multiple topics. This covers pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.

They achieve this through lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.

We examine five episodes that impacted the welfare, autonomy, and survival of girls and women.

USAID Dismantled

In the month of March, a month and a half following a major US aid agency is its funds are blocked, causing widespread distress, a senior US official confirms that a vast majority of the organization's initiatives will be axed. American foreign service officers, former presidents and humanitarian and health experts condemn the news, stating that lives will be lost. Rights defenders say that the demise of the agency is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Many organisations say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by reduced funding, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, reports confirm how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with many more millions at risk. Additional key contributing countries follow with their own cuts. A leader of an international advocacy group says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a move to appease a political ally.

Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit

In the same month, several Christian-right organisations meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a strategic summit held alongside 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 celebrate changes in American foreign policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the women’s summit with a grave caution that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is back, after a analysis demonstrates that groups opposing progressive rights are deliberately weakening longstanding consensus on key women’s rights issues around the world.

African ‘Family Values’ Conferences

Over the summer, a cluster of meetings in Africa centered on the conventional household and state autonomy raises concerns among human rights defenders. In the start of May, a president and first lady open a significant conference to combat what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A shortly thereafter, another regional summit on conservative ethics is held. Both events are participated in by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to resist “international liberal agenda” of global institutions. In the following month, a prominent church hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in West Africa, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Advocates remark that the extent of foreign involvement has increased markedly.

Contraceptive Destruction Order

As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in July plans to incinerate a vast stockpile of birth control held in a storage facility in Belgium. A global sexual health network states that their incineration will prevent countless females from access to birth control, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains in deadlock as local authorities refuse to permit usable products to be destroyed.

‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded

Reviving the global gag rule, 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 the autumn, 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 expert in child welfare says widening the scope will have “devastating consequences”. Pro-choice activists fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being arranged with states on the continent will become dependent on agreeing to the new, wider policy.