Last week, I attended a conference where a delegate from Liberia asked the panel how she could support young women who have been gang-raped.
“Pray,” replied one speaker, though she added that practical help is needed too: “We need grandmas knitting booties.” Another chipped in with her thoughts: “It is very rare that rape results in pregnancy,” she said, and when it does, “God has allowed that conception to take place.”
Abortion in cases of rape is legal in Liberia – but in the minds of those attending the Conference on the State of Women and Family in New York, the practice is “unthinkable” in any circumstance. Over two days, speaker after speaker repeated their commitment to “protecting women” while damning those who choose abortion. “Hallelujah to Roe v Wade but there is still a war against women and their children,” Denise Mountenay from the Endeavour Forum told the packed room.
However hard it was to listen to the twisted logic of those who believe that “pregnant women don’t need safe abortion, they need safe pregnancies”, it was not surprising. The anti-rights movement has been vocal for years and has been emboldened by political support. But two things struck me as I heard their arguments: the first was the absolute cruelty at the heart of their message – cruelty that comes wrapped in love and respect, and packaged as a human rights issue.
The second is that this conference, sponsored by some of the most powerful Christian, anti-rights groups in the US, was taking place in a swish hotel directly opposite the UN headquarters where government ministers and civil society representatives were debating the urgent and growing threat to gender equality and justice.
Earlier in the week, UN secretary general António Guterres had opened the 69th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) with “a red alert”, warning that “a ferocious backlash against the rights of women and girls is growing in power and strength: stripping women of their rights, rolling back progress, and causing leaders to drop equality like a stone.”
His speech kickstarted two weeks of debate among government ministers and civil society about the urgent threat posed by the anti-rights movement. More than 10,000 people attended CSW. It was heartening to listen to people such as Marta Lempart, the Polish activist who led the country’s pro-choice women’s strikes, and did not hold back in her condemnation of the anti-rights brigade. “I hate these guys and I’m saying this out loud. This is a fight. Anger is good.”
But the fight needs funding. Recent aid cuts by the US, UK and other countries including the Netherlands will hit women and girls the hardest. The message from CSW was clear: there is no shortage of energy and determination from grassroots organisations and their supporters – but they need investment too. Isabel Choat, commissioning editor, Global development
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