Five Critical Key Moments in the Rollback of the Rights of Females in the Past Year.

In the previous year, groups dedicated to gender equality were steeling themselves against a Trump presidency sequel. Scarcely anyone expected. The volume and speed of executive orders originating in the White House were regarded as a calculated strategy to overwhelm and create panic. This strategy had its intended impact – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as networks struggled to address the shortfall left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But that was just the beginning.

The US administration has been the main instigator, complemented by vigorous campaigning by religious fundamentalist networks capitalizing on the climate to forge international alliances with political allies.

The anti-rights movement refers to a global network of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as affluent financiers and clans that work to dismantle forward movement on multiple topics. Areas targeted involve abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.

They accomplish their goals by advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.

We look at five instances that influenced the security, respect, and well-being of girls and women.

USAID Effectively Dismantled

In the month of March, six weeks after a key American development organization is its funds are blocked, causing global disruption, a senior US official reveals that a vast majority of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. Career diplomats, past leaders and aid and medical specialists decry the decision, warning that mortality will increase. Human rights advocates say that the closure of the organization is not just a financial shortfall, it is a savage attack on human rights and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Numerous groups say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by waning support, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, statistics reveal how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with many more millions at risk. Two other major donor nations announce their own austerity measures. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a choice to reduce international development funding is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.

Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting

In the same month, several Christian-right organisations 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 oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in high spirits as they welcome shifts in US policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the women’s summit with a stark warning that “the poison of patriarchy” is returning, after a report shows that anti-rights actors are deliberately weakening longstanding consensus on core aspects of gender equality around the world.

Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa

Over the summer, a cluster of meetings in Africa themed around the conservative family structures and national independence raises concerns among human rights defenders. In early May, a national leader and spouse open a large assembly to push back on what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A shortly thereafter, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are participated in by leading American and European conservative activists, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker calls on African NGOs to resist “radical global social engineering” of international organizations. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a family strengthening conference in an African nation, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the level of external participation has increased markedly.

Contraceptive Destruction Order

As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are facing shortages of birth control, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, 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 contraceptive supplies, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains unresolved as local authorities refuse to permit perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.

‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded

Reviving the global gag rule, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the policy was restored in January. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in October, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. Additional information regarding the expansion of the rule are likely forthcoming. A leader in global maternal health says widening the scope will have “catastrophic impacts”. Pro-choice activists fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being discussed with African nations will become conditional on accepting the new, wider policy.