The 70th Commission on the Status of Women has hit its halfway mark, with a historic vote on Monday foreshadowing a division that only grew throughout the week.
On one side, there’s the United Nations, large international aid agencies, and a collection of countries — from Sweden to Spain — that are pushing for more progressive women’s rights. On the other hand, there’s a constellation of nations, faith-based groups, and anti-abortion activists that are advocating for family values, while accusing the U.N. of indoctrinating developing nations when it comes to sex, abortion, and gender identity.
Both blocs think their opponents have more money, power, and influence, and both are positioning this moment as a precipice for women’s rights. But with the world’s richest country firmly aligned with just one side, it seems that the only thing either group can agree on is that the stakes have never been higher — especially for the global south.
Let me take you back to Monday, the first day of CSW at the U.N. headquarters in New York. For weeks, delegates had been negotiating an outcome document — a political declaration that every year is meant to outline the commission’s priorities on women, girls, and gender.
The United States had initially abstained from those negotiations, but two weeks before CSW began, the country reentered the fray. The U.S. brought with it a list of more than 90 amendments, comments, and red lines, chief among them that “controversial social policies” should be debated within countries, not through U.N. documents.
The vast majority of those recommendations didn’t make it in, and for the first time in CSW history, the commission was forced to vote on the document instead of coming to a consensus. Ultimately, the document passed, with 37 nations voting in favor, six abstaining, and just one country — the U.S. — voting against.
The room erupted into applause. While most agreed the document did little more than hold the line, many walking the halls of the U.N. headquarters told me the vote was nothing short of a diplomatic victory.
“The fact that the commission, for the first time in its history, went to a vote, tells us about the headwinds that we are all facing,” said U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, speaking at a town hall with civil society organizations on Tuesday. “But for those in the room, we saw and heard through loud applause that the pushback against the pushback is just as strong, if not stronger.”
Read: UN diplomats revel in US setback at women’s rights forum
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Just steps away from UNHQ, another gathering was attracting hundreds — and the attendees’ take on the negotiations couldn’t have been further from the secretary-general’s.
“They isolated the U.S. and made them look like outliers,” said Sharon Slater, president of the controversial anti-abortion group Family Watch International.
Slater was speaking at the Conference on the Status of Women and Family, a two-day event that ran parallel to CSW. From the 14th floor of New York’s Lebanese American University, the conference — also known as the CSWF — hosted sessions on “gender ideology,” the “hidden side of surrogacy,” and the push for pro-life policies across the world. I attended several, and in each one, the U.N. and international aid agencies were repeatedly made the target.
“How does the West push their sexual agenda in the developing world?” asked anti-abortion activist Jonathon Van Maren, speaking from the CSWF podium on Thursday. “They do it in a very sinister fashion, which is by attaching desperately needed foreign aid to these programs.”
While the coordinators of the conference were American, a handful of African nations were involved, too. Burundi hosted events on motherhood and protecting unborn children, while Nigeria held a related session on transgender surgeries the day before the CSWF began.
Janet Zeenat Karim, a former U.N. diplomat from Malawi, also spoke against the influence of nonprofits, stating that civil society organizations “go into villages with bags of money and leave them there, and that leads to changing, or pushing, for a change in [abortion] policy.”
Still, no government was more present at CSWF than the U.S., which hosted five events throughout its two days. Bethany Kozma, director of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Global Affairs, took the CSWF stage alongside other U.S. officials, where she pushed for an end to “gender ideology,” a term commonly used by conservative groups to criticize policies related to gender identity and transgender rights.
“The United States urges you to join us in our endeavor to protect women and girls from the insanity that has spread like a disease around the world: gender ideology,” said Kozma, who holds a powerful position in the Trump administration shaping America’s role in global health. “This is not an American issue alone.”
Day after day, it was made clear: Each side of the gender divide felt like they were up against an insurmountable enemy. While those at the CSWF rallied against the U.N., those at the U.N. sounded the alarm on “an increasingly organized pushback” on gender equality worldwide.
“Many countries in Africa that have come under the influence of the American far-right, who have gotten funding from [the Alliance for Defending Freedom], Family Watch International, and who signed the Geneva Consensus Declaration, are getting involved in the family conversation,” said Ayesha Khan, a senior research fellow at the think tank ODI Global. “That’s something that going forward, I think we need to monitor more closely.”
Khan was referring to a declaration launched under the first Trump administration, which has continued to gather signatories ever since. Today, 40 nations have signed onto the document, which states that “there is no international right to abortion” and asserts that governments should prioritize “protecting the right to life.”
Khan also explained that research from ODI Global has dug into the influence of anti-abortion groups in Africa in particular, with reports mapping how such organizations have influenced anti-homosexuality legislation in Uganda and blocked a bill that would allow for abortion until 14 weeks in Sierra Leone.
It’s why many at UNHQ view such movements as a primary example of the growing backlash on women’s rights. But for Grace Melton, a senior associate at the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, that framing felt like “convenient shorthand.”
“Women don’t need unfettered access to abortion to be equal in rights, and equal in dignity, and equal in opportunities,” Melton told me. “What we’re arguing about is what is actually being defined as a right, and what the basis is for those rights.”
“The vast majority of women all around the world really agree on all of the necessities, and so to have these big battles over things [like abortion] that are not central to the lives of most women — especially women who are looking to the UN or looking to Western countries to help meet their real needs — I think those conversations need to shift another direction,” she added.
Background reading: Inside the global anti-abortion coalition preparing for Trump’s return
The ever-widening disconnect is unfolding while the architecture of gender policy, programming, and power is shifting.
At the U.N., the system’s two premier agencies focused on women — the U.N. Population Fund and UN Women — are being eyed for a merger, with a document released just before CSW bringing the global body one step closer to doing so.
In the INGO space, organizations are recalibrating after a year of aid cuts, and organizations such as Plan International are looking at ways to consolidate procurement processes, shift money to local partners, and firm up private funders to rebuild.
And for those watching Washington, many are wondering how the State Department will spend the $607.5 million it just received for family planning and reproductive health — and whether the U.S. Congress can ensure the agency does so.
“The future is not fixed. All of this — both the progress as well as the backsliding — are due to determinate choices, political choices,” Sarah Hendriks, UN Women’s director of policy, program, and intergovernmental support division, told me. “Gender equality has only ever moved forward because we decide it must move forward. And so that aspect of political will, at this moment, is critical.”
CSW continues throughout next week — so stay tuned as we continue to bring you the latest from New York.
ICYMI: Document lays groundwork for UN Women–UNFPA merger
Read more: As aid dries up, Plan International accelerates support for women (Pro)
Check out: US pulls away from family planning. What about the $600M saved for it?
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