‘Family values’ African charter condemned by rights groups as regressive and dangerous

Draft treaty claims sexual and reproductive health and rights are an existential threat to the African family

Isabel Choat
Fri 5 Jun 2026

An African treaty that rejects longstanding international human rights obligations moved a step closer to becoming policy this week as governments across the continent met in Ghana.

The draft African charter on family, sovereignty and values, seen by the Guardian, asserts that African values and culture are under attack from “foreign ideologies” and urges states to withdraw from any agreements that do not align with the principles of the charter, including the 2003 Maputo protocol, which promotes gender equality and protects the reproductive and health rights of women and girls.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/jun/05/ghana-african-charter-family-values-gender-women-sex-lgbtq-reproductive-rights

Geneva Consensus Declaration: Institutionalizing Attacks on Women and LGBTQ+ Rights

May 28, 2026

Trump’s former Special Representative for Global Women’s Health and a long-time anti-abortion activist, Valerie Huber, argued recently in an opinion piece in The Hill that an international anti-abortion agreement she spearheaded is one of the “most underused diplomatic assets in America’s current foreign policy toolkit.”

Huber, now CEO of The Institute for Women’s Health, served during the first Trump administration, where she was instrumental in the creation of the October 2022 Geneva Consensus Declaration (GCD). Signed by 41 countries, the GCD is a nonbinding international agreement with the stated goal of promoting better “health for women, the preservation of human life, strengthening of the family as the foundational unit of society, and protecting every nation’s national sovereignty in global politics.”

Continued: https://globalextremism.org/post/geneva-consensus-declaration/

‘Trojan horse moment’: anti-rights groups seize chance to fill void left by US aid cuts

Ultra-conservative Christian organisations look to reshape global health landscape as new aid agreements open door to demands restricting family planning services

Isabel Choat
Wed 17 Dec 2025

The sudden stop work order on USAID in January 2025 sent shock waves around the world. Many health clinics were immediately shut down, leaving millions without access to vital medicines and facilities, with potentially deadly consequences, especially for HIV patients, children, and women and adolescent girls.

To many, the subsequent axing of 83% of USAID programmes seemed like pure nihilism, engineered by ideologues who wanted to kill off the agency. But there was a long-term vision behind the destruction. The gutting of USAID has cleared a path for the next phase of a plan to reshape the global health landscape, say reproductive justice campaigners.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/17/trojan-horse-moment-anti-rights-groups-fill-void-us-aid-cuts

Trump’s assault on human rights, bodily autonomy and democracy

January 25, 2025
Ipas

Late on Friday, January 24th, President Trump doubled down on his administration’s anti-abortion policies, reinstating the harmful Global Gag Rule, rejoining the non-binding Geneva Consensus Declaration (GCD), and strengthening the Hyde Amendment.

“These actions add up to a violation of human rights, bodily autonomy and democracy, as well as an unprecedented attack on the reproductive rights of people in the U.S. and across the globe,” says Ipas President and CEO Anu Kumar.

Continued: https://www.ipas.org/news/trumps-assault-on-human-rights-bodily-autonomy-and-democracy/

What to expect from Trump 2.0: The anti-rights brigade are now in power

We're hurtling into a dark period for abortion rights and beyond. Get out your flashlights

Dr Anu Kumar
20 January 2025

With Trump 2.0, the US enters a new era – one where people’s rights, particularly those of women and girls, LGBTQIA+ people, Black or brown people, or immigrants, are ignored, or worse, violated. Climate change is not a concern. Disinformation is rampant. Reproductive freedom, particularly the access to abortion, is radically curtailed, despite broad voter support.

Most of us are familiar with (and frankly, are already experiencing) the Project 2025 playbook, which calls for dismantling democratic norms in the US, unitary executive power, harsh Christian nationalism, a punitive approach to foreign assistance and multilateralism, and violations of human rights. We're hurtling into a dark period. Get out your flashlights.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/trump-project-2025-abortion-rights-inauguration/

Trump’s Return Invigorates Global Anti-Abortion Drive

Not everything termed ‘Geneva’ advances human rights

Jan 06, 2025
Asia Sentinel

The global movement to undermine and restrict access to safe abortion, which went relatively dormant during the Biden interregnum that began in 2020, looks likely to return along with Donald Trump’s return to the US presidency. Although the returning president shied away from the anti-abortion crusade as a political liability during his 2024 campaign and may well remain silent domestically, internationally it is likely to return in the form of the regressive Geneva Consensus Declaration.

The Declaration was introduced two weeks before Trump left office in 2020 by his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and adopted by 39 countries under the pretext of “promoting women’s health and strengthening the family.” The Biden administration immediately took the US out of the Declaration upon taking office. Having frustrated the anti-abortion forces in the US during his campaign, Trump is likely to make up to them on the international front, according to the medical anthropologist Lynn Morgan in a telephone conversation from Mount Holyoke College, a private women's liberal arts school in Massachusetts.

Continued: https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/trump-return-invigorate-global-anti-abortion-drive

Why Trump’s next presidency poses a new global threat to women’s health

Rachel Schraer
Dec 3, 2024

Immediately after Donald Trump clinched a second term in the White House, mail orders of abortion pills spiked across the U.S. Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood, the country’s biggest provider of reproductive health services, saw an eightfold increase in appointments for long-acting contraceptive devices known as IUDs.

The reality of another Trump presidency appears to have stoked fears among many Americans that their access to abortion and contraception could be further restricted. But the issue stretches beyond U.S. borders. Around the world, hundreds of millions of women who had no say in Trump’s election could lose vital health services because of his decisions.

Continued: https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/other/why-trump-s-next-presidency-poses-a-new-global-threat-to-women-s-health/ar-AA1vbYiK

African women and girls will die from unsafe abortions thanks to Trump win

Trump has emboldened anti-rights groups globally. African women will suffer as a result

Joy Asasira
8 November 2024

Trump’s presidency already looks set to have a catastrophic effect on sexual reproductive health and rights on the African continent. I work as a reproductive and gender health specialist in Uganda and we’re still feeling the impacts of Trump’s last presidency. No doubt, African women and girls across the continent are worried about how Trump’s second presidency will impact their health and lives.

In his last term, we saw an emboldening of anti-rights, anti-gender and anti-democratic forces, while Christian right values were weaponised against minorities. And this spread well beyond its borders. With his latest election win, the groups that backed his bid to power will likely feel even more emboldened.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/trump-win-us-global-africa-women-girls-abortion/

Trump’s Abortion Policy Could Go Global

In this year’s U.S. election, abortion is also a top foreign-policy issue.

By Jodi Enda, the Washington bureau chief and senior correspondent for The Fuller Project.
November 1, 2024

Less than two weeks before his 2020 election defeat, former U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration rolled out a document that purported to promote women’s health and rights while declaring that there was “no international right to abortion.”

“It’s the first time that a multilateral coalition has been built around the issue of defending life,” then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said at a signing ceremony, conducted virtually because of the coronavirus pandemic. Brazil, Egypt, Hungary, Indonesia, and Uganda joined the United States in sponsoring the nonbinding directive, called the Geneva Consensus Declaration on Promoting Women’s Health and Strengthening the Family. Another 28 countries, many with authoritarian governments that repress women’s rights, signed it.

Continued https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/11/01/trumps-abortion-policy-could-go-global/

‘It’s needless death’: Ugandan activists decry restrictive abortion laws

Abortion is generally illegal in Uganda, and fear of imprisonment leads many to resort to extreme and unsafe practices.

By Sophie Neiman
Published On 28 Sep 2024

Kampala, Uganda – At exactly 3:21pm on August 25, Moses Odongo received a call informing him that his 14-year-old cousin Christine had died attempting to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.

Odongo, who is 40, had just returned home and was sitting down for a drink and a bite to eat. His grief at her untimely death quickly mixed with anger at Uganda’s restrictive abortion laws and conservative culture, which he believes killed her.

Continued: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/9/28/its-needless-death-ugandan-activists-decry-restrictive-abortion-laws