Yesterday, in a 6-3 vote, liberal members of the court dissenting, the US Supreme Court granted an emergency stay of a lower court decision mandating that the Trump administration disburse the $4 billion dollars in foreign aid approved by Congress.
While the Court’s decision isn’t a final one, the funds must be spent before the end of the fiscal year, endangering their being ever dispensed.
The Court’s decision violates the right of Congress to legislate the nation’s purse, as granted by the Constitution.
The consequences from the holdup are lethal, especially for women in developing nations.
In Uganda, 88 teachers have been dismissed and thousands of students have dropped out, the majority of them girls. In Uganda, only a quarter of remaining students are females.
Early sell off of daughters as young as thirteen is increasingly common, as families seek to buttress income through dowries, consequent with the government’s reduction in food subsidies.
As is, numerous African women have been raped by warring militants, especially in South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Rape victims face social stigma and diminished prospects of marriage. The
administration’s policies only add to their plight.
Let me tell you what’s happened in Lesotho, whose primary industry is textiles, its workforce 80% female. Due to Trump’s tariffs and a decrease in aid, orders have dried-up, resulting in mass layoffs.
Across Africa, reduced employment impacts health, imperiling the progress made against AIDS/STD. Most health care workers are women. It used to be that women could access an HIV test, averaging 12 cents a test. With suspension of aid, that option has virtually disappeared.
Pap smears are now largely unavailable; the fallout, cervical cancer rivals maternal mortality.
African children, many of them already undernourished, stunted in growth and suffering mental retardation, face the bleakest of futures.
Some women may resort to transactional sex as means to economic survival, increasing health risk.
With the pervasive suspension of birth control assistance, women lose the ability to limit family size. The average family size in Africa is 4.5. Still more in the Sahel. By the century’s turn, Nigeria alone will have a projected 750 million population.
Poverty is an enemy of the social fabric, contributing to domestic violence.
Poverty contributes to crime, much of it food theft.
Poverty increases migration pressures and with dislocation, still more violence, as is occurring in South Africa, migrants resented as competitors.
Menaced by climate warming, which Trump calls a hoax, Africans are confronted with daily survival made worse by prolonged droughts and tropical diseases.
Trump, however, dismisses developing nations as “shithole countries,” his racism creating a vast milieu of unprecedented suffering.
I’ve largely centered on Africa, but its experience is reenacted in other developing countries as well.
Women, tragically, are Trump’s primary victims.
rj
Brimmings: up from the well 