Women’s rights face enormous challenges worldwide next year with campaigners expecting fights to keep health clinics open, to save programs preventing unwanted pregnancies and to enforce laws protecting women from violence.
Globally, women’s rights are in the crosshairs of rising isolationism and right-wing politics in Western Europe and the US, where US president-elect Donald Trump has promised to unravel an array of beneficial policies.
“There are major challenges facing women’s rights coming up, not the least of which is a global cultural understanding ... that women are in essence second-class citizens,” Amnesty International USA identity and discrimination unit senior director Tarah Demant said.
“This is a global phenomenon. We are really worried,” she said.
Here are some of the biggest challenges to women’s rights next year:
ABORTION
A threat to abortion access is the likely reinstatement of the so-called global gag rule under the Trump administration.
First imposed under former US president Ronald Reagan, the rule prohibits groups getting US aid abroad from providing abortions or counseling patients about abortions, even if their funds for those activities come from other sources.
The rule was lifted by US President Barack Obama in 2009, but can be reinstated with the stroke of a pen.
Under the gag rule, many groups turned down US aid, leaving them short of money for health services from cancer screenings to flu shots, advocates say.
The US could also pull funding from the UN Population Fund, which provides access to reproductive health services, but does not fund or support abortion.
WOMEN’S ORGANIZATIONS
Women’s groups work around the world on such issues as divorce rights, gender wage gaps and child marriage, often operating in hostile environments on shoestring budgets.
Several countries have enacted laws pressuring such groups by making them register as foreign agents if they get funding from international donors, said Janet Walsh, acting director of women’s rights division at Human Rights Watch.
At the same time, funding from US government sources is likely to shrink, she said.
“I’m afraid for those who take a stand for women’s rights, that their security and their ability to register and operate as organizations will be undercut,” she said.
VIOLENCE
One in three women has experienced physical or sexual violence, most commonly inflicted by a partner, statistics show.
An estimated one in five will become a victim of rape or attempted rape, according to the UN, and high rates of femicide and domestic abuse grip many countries.
“Violence against women is a human rights crisis. It is a health crisis. It is a cultural crisis,” Demant said.
LOSS OF US LEADERSHIP
The US government has in recent years played a key role in promoting and supporting women’s rights, especially helping draw up global development goals approved by the UN, one of which calls for gender equality by 2030.
“We fear a rollback on international agreements on women’s rights and a rollback of commitments by governments on women’s rights,” International Women’s Health Coalition president Francois Girard said.
US STRUGGLE
Anti-abortion advocates want to repeal Roe v Wade, the 1972 US Supreme Court decision making abortion legal.
Trump will have an opportunity to name one or more justices to the US’ highest court and has vowed they will be abortion opponents.
In the meantime, state laws are chipping away at abortion rights.
Texas lawmakers approved a law requiring burial of aborted fetal tissue, a measure estimated to cost hundreds of dollars per procedure, and Ohio signed into law a ban on abortions after 20 weeks.
“The number of abortions never goes down very much, regardless of the law,” National Organization for Women president Terry O’Neill said. “What does go down is the safety and affordability of contraception in the US.”
Trump has said he would appeal some or all of the Affordable Care Act, which has provided 25 million previously uninsured Americans with health coverage.
Known as “Obamacare,” it pays for most birth control methods for women.
“That funding, by enabling women to avoid unintended pregnancies, saves the federal government a ton of money that they would otherwise have to pay for medical care, pregnancy care, childcare etc,” said Ann Starrs, head of the Guttmacher Institute, a leading reproductive rights group.
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