A Quintet of Pivotal Events in the Challenge to the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Past Year.

This time last year, feminist advocacy groups were steeling themselves against a Trump presidency sequel. Few were prepared for. The flood and velocity of administrative decrees emanating from the White House were seen as a premeditated approach to cause confusion and fear. This strategy had its intended impact – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as networks struggled to fill the gap left by a freeze on international development funds. But that was just the beginning.

The Washington leadership has been the key driver, bolstered by fervent lobbying efforts by far-right organisations exploiting the situation to forge international alliances with ideological partners.

This opposition to progressive rights denotes an international coalition of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that aim to roll back forward movement on multiple topics. Areas targeted involve access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.

They achieve this through lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.

We review five episodes that affected the safety, dignity and lives of the female population.

USAID Effectively Dismantled

In the month of March, a month and a half following a major US aid agency is its funds are blocked, causing turmoil around the world, a senior US official reveals that over eighty percent of the institution's work will be scrapped. American foreign service officers, past leaders and humanitarian and health experts decry the decision, cautioning that lives will be lost. Activists say that the closure of the organization is not just a financial shortfall, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Many organisations say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by shrinking assistance, especially in war zones. As the year ends, evidence indicates 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. Two other major donor nations proceed with parallel slashes. A leader of an international advocacy group says a choice to reduce international development funding is a move to appease a political ally.

Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting

In March, several Christian-right organisations meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a two-day conference held in parallel 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 optimistic frame of mind as they applaud 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 stark warning that “the venom of male dominance” is back, after a report shows that opponents of gender equality are actively undermining historic agreements on key women’s rights issues around the world.

Summits Promoting Conservative Norms

Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa focused on the conservative family structures and national independence sparks alarm among rights advocates. In the start of May, a national leader and spouse open a significant conference to resist what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A shortly thereafter, another regional summit on family values is held. Both events are participated in 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 June, a major religious institution hosts a family strengthening conference in an African nation, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Advocates remark that the extent of foreign involvement has increased markedly.

Contraceptive Destruction Order

As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are facing shortages of birth control, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in July plans to destroy a vast stockpile of birth control held in a storage facility in Belgium. A major reproductive health federation states that their destruction will deny a huge female population from access to birth control, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains in deadlock as the regional government are blocking the destruction of viable medicines.

Broader Restrictions on Aid

Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which cuts American funding 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 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 expansion of the rule are likely forthcoming. A expert in child welfare says extending the reach will have “devastating consequences”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that fresh American assistance deals being discussed with African nations will become conditional on accepting the broadened restrictions.