Proof That Trump’s First Year In Office Was A Disaster For Women

When Donald Trump was sworn in on January 20 2017 as the President of the United States, many women took to the streets to protest his inauguration saying he was a misogynist who will reverse steps taken for women empowerment across the globe.

A year later, their stand has been vindicated. In his first 12 months, Trump has undone years of progress for women.

To begin with, Trump reinstated the Mexico City policy, otherwise known as the ‘global gag rule’. This policy instituted by president Ronald Reagan in 1984 requires non-governmental organizations to "agree as a condition of their receipt of [U.S.] federal funds" that they would "neither perform nor actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations".

The policy has divided politicians ever since with Republicans favoring it and Democrats protesting it. Bill Clinton rescinded the policy in 1993 only for George W. Bush to reinstate it in 2001. Barack Obama rescinded it in 2009, only for Trump reinstate it just three days after taking office.

Further, Trump reversed the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces order signed by Obama in 2014 to ensure for equal pay for male and female workers for equal work. Obama's order required companies, which received federal contracts, to comply with 14 workplace laws including health and safety standards. It also required wage transparency, and a ban on forced arbitration clauses for sexual-harassment cases.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration cut funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNPF), which provides maternal- and child-health services in more than 150 countries to ensure a healthy pregnancy. The decision was reached, according to TIME, because the agency “supports, or participates in the management of, a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization” in China, a claim that the UNFPA calls “erroneous”.

In the 2018 budget, Trump proposes to merge the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) with the State Department and cutting its funding by about a third. USAID currently operates in about 100 countries working to end extreme global poverty, combat HIV/AIDS, and improve reproductive, maternal and child health care. The cuts would force the organization to eliminate 30 to 35 of its field missions, slashing global health funding in 41 countries.

Trump also dismantled the Affordable Care Act, which would leave 14 million more people uninsured in 2018 — and 23 million more in 2026. It would also allow states to define “essential health benefits” and allow insurers to charge thousands more with pre-existing conditions. Planned Parenthood would face a one-year Medicaid funding freeze and it would become harder for people to get insurance coverage for abortion.

He rescinded the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which protected about 800,000 Dreamers or undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children.

According to Wong's survey, 25% of DACA recipients have at least one US-born child. This means the government can deport 200,000 undocumented parents of American children and place 5,000 of those children in foster care. Below is an emotional footage showing a Michigan father being separated from his family and deported to Mexico due to Trump’s anti-immigration policies: