New State Department rules suggest that countries enforcing race or gender diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies will be at risk of the Trump administration deeming them as infringing on human rights, according to the BBC.
The new rules are issued to all US embassies and consulates involved in compiling the State Department’s annual report on global human rights abuses.
State Department deputy spokesperson Tommy Pigott said the new instructions were intended to stop “new destructive ideologies [that] have given safe harbour to human rights violations”.
He said: “The Trump administration will not allow these human rights violations, such as the mutilation of children, laws that infringe on free speech, and racially discriminatory employment practices, to go unchecked.”
Other policies by foreign governments which US embassies will be told to categorise as human rights infringements include:
- Subsidising abortions, “as well as the total estimated number of annual abortions”
- Gender-transition surgery for children, defined by the state department as “operations involving chemical or surgical mutilation… to modify their sex”
- Facilitating mass or illegal migration “across a country’s territory into other countries”
- Arrests or “official investigations or warnings for speech” – a reference to the Trump administration’s opposition to internet safety laws adopted by some European countries to deter online hate speech
The BBC reports that the changes have been condemned by rights campaigners who argue that the Trump administration is re-defining long-established human rights principles to pursue ideological goals.
It notes that the instructions signal the expansion into foreign policy of the Trump administration’s domestic agenda on issues that have become a lightning rod of division in the US over recent years.
The BBC quotes an unnamed senior State Department official (who spoke on condition of anonymity) as saying that the new rules are “a tool to change the behaviour of governments”.
The official is reported as saying: “The United States remains committed to the Declaration of Independence’s recognition that all men are endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable rights.” He added that rights were “given to us by God, our creator, not by governments”.
[Image: Library of Congress on Unsplash]