A Quintet of Landmark Occurrences in the Challenge to the Freedoms of Women and Girls in This Past Year.

A year ago, organisations advocating for women's rights were bracing themselves for a second Trump term. Hardly anyone anticipated. The flood and velocity of White House mandates coming out of the White House were seen as a premeditated approach to paralyze through overload. In many ways it worked – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as networks struggled to fill the gap left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But this was only the precursor.

The Washington leadership has been the primary force, bolstered by relentless activism by ultra-conservative groups exploiting the situation to strengthen global ties with ideological partners.

This opposition to progressive rights describes a worldwide alliance of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as billionaire families and individuals that work to dismantle advances on numerous fronts. This covers 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 promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.

We look at five junctures that impacted the welfare, autonomy, and survival of girls and women.

USAID Effectively Dismantled

In the month of March, six weeks after a prominent humanitarian funder is frozen, causing global disruption, a senior US official reveals that nearly all of the institution's work will be scrapped. Career diplomats, ex-presidents and aid and medical specialists denounce the action, warning that fatalities will ensue. Activists 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. Numerous groups say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by waning support, 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 millions more to come. Two other major donor nations announce their own austerity measures. A leader of an international advocacy group says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.

Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit

In March, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a two-day conference held concurrently with the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they welcome shifts in US policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the women’s summit with a grave caution that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is returning, after a report shows that groups opposing progressive rights are deliberately weakening established norms on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.

Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa

Over the summer, a series of conferences in Africa themed around the traditional family and national sovereignty triggers anxiety among equality campaigners. In May, a national leader and spouse open a major forum to combat what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A soon after, another regional summit on family values is held. Both events are attended by leading American and European conservative activists, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker calls on African NGOs to stand up to “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of international organizations. In the following month, a prominent church hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in West Africa, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Advocates remark that the level of external participation has expanded considerably.

US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives

As health facilities across Africa report they are running out of contraceptives, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in July plans to incinerate a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a European depot. A major reproductive health federation states that their elimination will deprive countless females from family planning options, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “heartless and dangerous”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains at a standstill as host nation officials will not allow usable products to be destroyed.

‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded

Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which halts US aid to groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the ban was reimposed in January. The administration also reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in October, the US announces it intends to broaden the scope of the policy to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. More details on the policy's widened application are likely forthcoming. A leader in global maternal health says widening the scope will have “unimaginable effects”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that new US aid packages being discussed with African nations will become dependent on agreeing to the expanded global gag.