Five Key Moments in the Challenge to the Freedoms of Women and Girls in This Past Year.

Twelve months prior, feminist advocacy groups were anticipating a second Trump term. Hardly anyone anticipated. The torrent and swiftness of administrative decrees originating in the White House were interpreted as a intentional maneuver to induce a state of shock. This strategy had its intended impact – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as networks struggled to fill the gap left by a sudden aid suspension. But the situation was about to worsen.

The American government has been the central catalyst, bolstered by relentless activism by ultra-conservative groups using the moment to forge international alliances with ideological partners.

This opposition to progressive rights 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. Areas targeted involve reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.

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

We look at five junctures that shaped the protection, honor, and existence of women and girls.

The Dismantling of USAID

In the month of March, six weeks after a key American development organization is frozen, causing international chaos, a senior US official states that a vast majority of the organization's initiatives will be axed. American foreign service officers, former presidents and aid and medical specialists decry the decision, predicting that mortality will increase. Rights defenders say that the closure of the organization is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and birth control and maternal healthcare. Numerous groups say the impact on girls and women will be severe 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 millions more to come. Additional key contributing countries follow with their own cuts. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.

Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit

In the same month, several conservative religious groups meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a two-day conference held in parallel with the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they applaud new Washington directives on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the women’s summit with a stark warning that “the venom of male dominance” is returning, after a study indicates that opponents of gender equality are actively undermining longstanding consensus on key women’s rights issues around the world.

African ‘Family Values’ Conferences

Over the warmer months, a series of conferences in Africa centered on the traditional family and national sovereignty triggers anxiety among human rights defenders. In the start of May, a head of state and partner open a significant conference to push back on what they label external influences undermining local norms. A few days later, another regional summit on traditional morals is held. Both events are attended by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker calls on African NGOs to stand up to “radical global social engineering” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a major religious institution hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in an African nation, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the level of external participation has increased markedly.

American Plan to Burn Birth Control

As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in midsummer plans to destroy millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a storage facility in Belgium. A leading family planning organization states that their destruction will deny a huge female population from access to birth control, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “callous and reckless”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains unresolved as the regional government refuse to permit usable products to be destroyed.

‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded

Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which prohibits Washington's support 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 rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in October, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Additional information regarding the broader enforcement are likely forthcoming. A director of a major health partnership says widening the scope will have “catastrophic impacts”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that fresh American assistance deals being arranged with states on the continent will become contingent upon adopting the broadened restrictions.