Five Defining Significant Developments in the Rollback of the Rights of Females in the Past Year.

This time last year, groups dedicated to gender equality were anticipating a new Trump administration. Few were prepared for. The volume and speed of presidential directives issued from the White House were seen as a calculated strategy to cause confusion and fear. This strategy had its intended impact – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as groups rushed to fill the gap left by a freeze on international development funds. But this merely marked the opening act.

The US administration has been the main instigator, supported by relentless activism by far-right organisations exploiting the situation to solidify transnational relationships with ideological partners.

The movement against gender equality describes a worldwide alliance of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as affluent financiers and clans that seek to undermine gains in a variety of areas. These include access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.

They accomplish their goals by advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to push for parity, disseminating propaganda, and supporting ideologically-matched groups.

We review five junctures that influenced the safety, dignity and lives of women and girls.

The Dismantling of USAID

In the month of March, a month and a half following a major US aid agency is halted, causing global disruption, a top American diplomat announces that nearly all of the organization's initiatives will be axed. American foreign service officers, former presidents and relief and public health authorities condemn the news, cautioning that lives will be lost. Human rights advocates say that the closure of the organization is not just a financial shortfall, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and family planning and reproductive care. Many organisations say females will bear the brunt by diminishing aid, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with many more millions at risk. Two other major donor nations follow with their own cuts. A director of a global justice organization says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.

Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting

In the same month, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a two-day conference 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 optimistic frame of mind as they applaud shifts in US policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the global conference with a stark warning that “the venom of male dominance” is returning, after a study indicates that groups opposing progressive rights are systematically eroding established norms on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.

African ‘Family Values’ Conferences

Over the summer, a series of conferences in Africa themed around the conservative family structures and national independence triggers anxiety among human rights defenders. In early May, a president and first lady open a major forum to resist what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A soon after, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are attended by leading American and European conservative activists, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to push back against “radical global social engineering” of global institutions. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in West Africa, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Campaigners note that the level of external participation has grown significantly.

Contraceptive Destruction Order

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 incinerate a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a storage facility in Belgium. A leading family planning organization states that their elimination will deprive countless females from family planning options, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains at a standstill as host nation officials refuse to permit the destruction of viable medicines.

Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy

Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which cuts American funding for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the rule was reinstated in January. The administration also reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in October, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Further specifics about the policy's widened application are likely forthcoming. A director of a major health partnership says widening the scope will have “devastating consequences”. Pro-choice activists fear that new US aid packages being discussed with African nations will become contingent upon adopting the new, wider policy.