L’Associació de Drets Sexuals i Reproductius, an organization that works directly with young people and women at the community level to defend their sexual and reproductive rights, and SPW present the research study “The Spanish Far Right On The Global Stage: Opposition To Sexual And Reproductive Rights – The cases of Argentina, Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile, and Kenya,” which can be downloaded in English, Spanish, and Catalan at this link.
The study shows that Spain is no longer just a country where the far right organizes; it is where it is ideologically manufactured, exporting its influence to Europe, Latin America, and Africa. The main agents in this process are Hazte Oír, CitizenGO, Opus Dei, Vox, and the Political Network for Values, which form the core of an international power network that combines religion, money, and political manipulation
The study examined the genealogy, role, and effects of Spanish far-right actors, not only in Latin America, where colonial dynamics are more direct and evident and where ultra-Catholicism is notoriously entrenched. A crucial step forward is to highlight and understand the dynamics at play on the African continent, where this expansion is more recent. The report also identifies common tactics: coordinated media campaigns, strategic litigation, manipulation of human rights language, and an emotional narrative that appeals to “child protection” or “parental freedom.” Behind this facade lies a deeply undemocratic program of social control. In other words, the anti-gender offensive attacks not only women or LGBTQIA+ people, but democracy itself.
Among the main findings, the longevity of these phenomena and their genealogical connection to Francoism in Spain stand out, as well as their transnational nature.
“In general, there is a perception that all this began ten years ago as a recent reaction to the conquest of rights. When we look at the six cases in the study, it is clear that this story cannot be retold in this way because there is a backdrop of old ultra-conservative forces that must be understood. On the other hand, the far right has always been thought of as a phenomenon of nationalist forces defending the homeland, but there is a transnationalization of these discourses, and in Spain it also has a very long history,” Sonia Correa explained to El Salto Diario.
Key players
Opus Dei is the oldest institution and has a great deal of influence over elites and academics, including the relatively recently created Vox party and its political think tank, Fundación Disenso, as well as Hazte Oír and CitizenGO, both platforms for cultural mobilization and agitation, and the transnational Political Network for Values, which brings together ultra-conservative politicians and intellectuals.
Opus Dei has been present in all the countries analyzed since the 1950s. And that long-term presence has created a very important basis for explaining the dynamics of today’s anti-gender offensives. As an example, El Salvador included the prohibition of abortion in its penal code in 1997, as a preventive measure, with the intention of making this a model for other Latin American countries, when Opus Dei priest Fernando Sáenz Lacalle was archbishop of San Salvador. Before El Salvador, Chile reintroduced the ban on abortion into its criminal code during the Pinochet dictatorship in 1989. Opus Dei also had influence in this regard in Chile.
Hazte Oír and CitizenGO, founded in the 2000s, operate as digital platforms for political agitation, with headquarters in Madrid and branches in more than twenty countries. They have sent plastic fetuses to Members of the European Parliament, harassed women outside abortion clinics, and launched transphobic buses that travel from New York to Nairobi.
The Disenso Foundation, Vox’s international arm, has organized summits of the so-called Iberosphere alongside Milei, Bolsonaro, Kast, and Orbán. With public funds—more than seven million euros—Santiago Abascal’s party has set up an ideological network that feeds the Latin American and African far right. Its media outlet, La Gaceta de la Iberosfera, functions as a propaganda tool against feminism, the LGTBIQ+ community, and reproductive rights.
National cases
The chapter on the Spanish laboratory, by Miquel Ramos, focuses on Spain as a “hub” that ‘exports’ discourses, ideas, and tactics with the aim of “waging a cultural battle against certain consensuses.” Juan Elman and Giselle Leclercq detail the Argentine case. Jaime Barrientos and Tomás Ojeda explain the Spanish connections in the Chilean far right. The case of Guatemala and its democratic erosion in an anti-gender key is described by Natalia Marsicovetere and Tristán López, who detail how the gateway for the Spanish far right in Guatemala has been economic ultraliberalism and its links to the business elite. Alberto Romero de Urbiztondo shows that, in El Salvador, the fight against abortion rights began long before Bukele, and finally, the Strategic Issues and Research Council (SIRC) presents the case of Kenya, considered by the Spanish far right to be a key hub, where it takes advantage of the deep roots that Opus Dei planted there even before its independence. In addition, CitizenGo has been using Kenya as its “center of operations” on the African continent since 2018 and has taken action there to oppose abortion and sex education.
In all the cases analyzed, the strategy combines political, religious, ideological, and economic projects with globally coordinated tactics. Their offensive includes anti-gender rhetoric adapted to local contexts and alliances with political, media, and religious actors to legitimize and capture institutional spaces. In addition, they all commonly use digital media and communication to spread misinformation and hate speech against feminist and LGBTIQ+ groups. In this context, these actors exploit existing political and cultural tensions and colonial legacies.
We have compiled the impact of the report in the foreign media, especially in the Spanish media, which can be consulted at this link.