Women’s rights face a daunting new year worldwide, campaigners warn

NEW YORK: Women’s rights face enormous challenges worldwide in 2017 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 United States, where 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,” said Tarah Demant of Amnesty International USA.

“This is a global phenomenon,” said Demant, senior director of Amnesty’s identity and discrimination unit. “We are really worried.”

Here are some of the biggest challenges to women’s rights in 2017:

A threat to abortion access is the likely reinstatement of the socalled global gag rule under the Trump administration.

First imposed under former 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 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 United States also could pull funding from the United Nations Population Fund, which provides access to reproductive health services but does not fund or support abortion.

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 organisations will be undercut,” she said.

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 United Nations, 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,” said Amnesty’s Demant.

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 United Nations, one of which calls for gender equality by 2030. — Reuters