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

A year ago, feminist advocacy groups were bracing themselves for a new Trump administration. Few were prepared for. The flood and velocity of White House mandates coming out of the White House were regarded as a deliberate tactic to induce a state of shock. The tactic proved effective – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as groups rushed to plug the hole left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But that was just the beginning.

The Washington leadership has been the main instigator, aided by intense advocacy work by far-right organisations capitalizing on the climate to forge international alliances with political allies.

The movement against gender equality refers to a global network of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as billionaire families and individuals that work to dismantle gains in a variety of areas. Areas targeted involve 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 foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.

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

USAID Effectively Dismantled

In March, a month and a half following a major US aid agency is halted, causing turmoil around the world, a senior US official states that nearly all of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. Career diplomats, past leaders and aid and medical specialists criticize the move, stating that people will die as a result. Rights defenders say that the closure of the organization is not just a financial shortfall, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and birth control and maternal healthcare. Many organisations say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by diminishing aid, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, data shows how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with many more millions at risk. Another pair of leading funders follow with their own cuts. A leader of an international advocacy group says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.

Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference

In March, several conservative religious groups meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a strategic summit held concurrently with the annual UN Women gathering. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they celebrate changes in American foreign policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the gender equality forum with a stark warning that “the poison of patriarchy” is back, after a study indicates that opponents of gender equality are systematically eroding historic agreements on core aspects of gender equality around the world.

Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa

Over the warmer months, a series of conferences in Africa focused on the traditional family and national sovereignty sparks alarm among rights advocates. In May, a president and first lady open a major forum to combat what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A shortly thereafter, another regional summit on traditional morals is held. Both events are participated in by leading American and European conservative activists, including heads of influential networks. One speaker calls on African NGOs to stand up to “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of international organizations. In June, a prominent church hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in an African nation, an event that pro-choice campaigners 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 destroy a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a storage facility in Belgium. A major reproductive health federation states that their incineration will prevent countless females from access to birth control, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains in deadlock as the regional government refuse to permit the destruction of viable medicines.

Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy

Reviving the global gag rule, which halts US aid to 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 January. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to broaden the scope of the policy to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. Additional information regarding the policy's widened application are likely forthcoming. A expert in child welfare says widening the scope will have “devastating consequences”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that fresh American assistance deals being arranged with states on the continent will become conditional on accepting the expanded global gag.