The Trump administration isn’t just dragging down the rights of minorities domestically — it’s also standing on the global stage against groups like the survivors of sexual violence in war. At a recent United Nations meeting, prominent human rights lawyer Amal Clooney slammed interests like the Trump team for their opposition to a resolution’s language about advancing sexual and reproductive health for those survivors, which officials claimed would open the door to abortion. In their fantasy world, apparently, abortion can just be legislated out of existence because they happen to not be fond of it.
After discussing the situation at hand, Clooney pointed out the breadth of the Trump administration’s opposition to progress, asserting of available steps besides the resolution they’ve attacked:
‘This council can refer the situation to the International Criminal Court, as many Yazidi survivors have called for. Unfortunately, this seems increasingly unlikely. The United States government has recently said through its national security adviser John Bolton and its Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that the ICC is “dead to us.”‘
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Amal Clooney called out the Trump admin for undermining efforts to help women raped during war, warning that it's their 'chance to stand on the right side of history’
Posted by NowThis Politics on Wednesday, April 24, 2019
It’s true — the Trump team has used that exact language, huffing up in a rage over the suggestion that the body would examine possible U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan. To be clear, however, the issue is not irrelevant — at present, Special Ops Chief Eddie Gallagher is awaiting trial in the United States for heinous war crimes including the wanton murder of a teenage prisoner and shooting random unarmed civilians overseas whose ultimate fates are not immediately clear.
The case Clooney in particular focused on at that U.N. meeting is that of the many survivors of sexual and other forms of violence perpetrated by the Islamic State terror group, which President Donald Trump and his team have ventured out essentially alone in declaring to be completely defeated. In reality, many of those connected to issues on the ground insist a multipronged threat remains, and the group is not gone.
Clooney shared that a woman she is working with “has spoken of only one fear — that when this is all over, the ISIS men will just shave off their beards and go back to their normal lives; that there will be no justice.” That justice could be achieved through means like the U.N. resolution in question condemning sexual violence in war; however, the Trump team has repeatedly rebuffed the measure, which has since been watered down with all references to sexual and reproductive health removed in order to avoid a threatened U.S. veto.
Clooney had harsh words for those operating along such lines, sharing:
‘Instead of abandoning international justice, we must stand up for it, because justice is not inevitable. It doesn’t just happen, and it doesn’t stand a chance if people in power… don’t make it a priority.’
Across the globe, the Trump administration has at this point clearly established dialing back women’s rights towards the top of their priority list. The laundry list of their egregious undercuts ranges from the reinstitution of a global gag rule prohibiting U.S. funding from supporting organizations that even mention abortion to the expansion of that rule to cover organizations that even associate with others who mention abortion as an option to an attempt to institute a similar rule domestically that was blocked in court this week.
Featured Image via screenshot
