Five Defining Crucial Incidents in the Assault on the Rights of Females in the Past Year.

Twelve months prior, feminist advocacy groups were steeling themselves against a return of Donald Trump to office. Hardly anyone anticipated. The sheer number and rapid pace of administrative decrees emanating from the White House were regarded as a intentional maneuver to cause confusion and fear. This strategy had its intended impact – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as organisations scrambled to compensate for the loss left by a sudden aid suspension. But the situation was about to worsen.

The American government has been the primary force, complemented by relentless activism by religious fundamentalist networks capitalizing on the climate to solidify transnational relationships with ideological partners.

The movement against gender equality signifies a transnational grouping of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as affluent financiers and clans that seek to undermine advances on numerous fronts. This covers reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.

They do this by pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to push for parity, disseminating propaganda, and supporting ideologically-matched groups.

We look at five moments that influenced the security, respect, and well-being of the female population.

USAID Effectively Dismantled

In the month of March, shortly after a major US aid agency is frozen, causing international chaos, a top American diplomat announces that over eighty percent of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. American foreign service officers, ex-presidents and aid and medical specialists denounce the action, predicting that fatalities will ensue. Activists say that the demise of the agency is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Numerous groups say females will bear the brunt by waning support, especially in war zones. As the year ends, data shows how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with many more millions at risk. Additional key contributing countries announce their own austerity measures. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a move to appease a political ally.

Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference

In the same month, several Christian-right organisations meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a biannual gathering held concurrently with the international conference on women's rights. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they applaud new Washington directives on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the global conference with a stark warning that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is back, after a analysis demonstrates that groups opposing progressive rights are actively undermining established norms on core aspects of gender equality around the world.

African ‘Family Values’ Conferences

Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa centered on the conventional household and state autonomy triggers anxiety among equality campaigners. In early May, a head of state and partner open a significant conference to push back on what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A soon after, another regional summit on family values is held. Both events are attended by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including heads of influential networks. One speaker calls on African NGOs to push back against “international liberal agenda” of international organizations. In the following month, a major religious institution hosts a family strengthening conference in the region, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Campaigners note that the extent of foreign involvement has grown significantly.

American Plan to Burn Birth Control

As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in July plans to dispose of millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a European depot. A major reproductive health federation states that their elimination will deprive countless females from access to birth control, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “callous and reckless”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains unresolved as local authorities refuse to permit usable products to be destroyed.

‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded

Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which cuts American funding for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the policy was restored in the first month of the year. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in October, the US announces it intends to broaden the scope of the policy to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. Further specifics about the broader enforcement are likely forthcoming. A leader in global maternal health says broadening the policy will have “unimaginable effects”. Pro-choice activists fear that fresh American assistance deals being negotiated with countries in Africa will become contingent upon adopting the broadened restrictions.