A Quintet of Pivotal Events in the Assault on the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
This time last year, groups dedicated to gender equality were preparing for a Trump presidency sequel. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The sheer number and rapid pace of executive orders coming out of the White House were interpreted as a premeditated approach to cause confusion and fear. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as agencies hastened to address the shortfall left by a freeze on international development funds. But the situation was about to worsen.
The Trump administration has been the central catalyst, complemented by relentless activism by religious fundamentalist networks capitalizing on the climate to forge international alliances with ideological partners.
The anti-rights movement signifies a transnational grouping of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as affluent financiers and clans that work to dismantle progress across a wide spectrum of issues. These include access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They achieve this through pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We look at five moments that shaped the welfare, autonomy, and survival of females globally.
USAID Dismantled
In March, a month and a half following a key American development organization is halted, causing international chaos, a senior US official states that a vast majority of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. American foreign service officers, ex-presidents and humanitarian and health experts condemn the news, warning that lives will be lost. Rights defenders say that the dismantling of this institution is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a savage attack on human rights and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Many organisations say the impact on girls and women will be severe by waning support, especially in war zones. As the year ends, data shows how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with millions more to come. Additional key contributing countries announce their own austerity measures. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In March, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a strategic summit held in parallel with the annual UN Women gathering. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in buoyant mood as they celebrate shifts in US policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the women’s summit with a grave caution that “the poison of patriarchy” is back, after a analysis demonstrates that anti-rights actors are systematically eroding established norms on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa centered on the conservative family structures and national independence sparks alarm among human rights defenders. In May, a president and first lady open a major forum to combat what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A few days later, another Pan-African conference on family values is held. Both events are participated in by leading American and European conservative activists, including heads of influential networks. One speaker urges African NGOs to resist “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a major religious institution hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in West Africa, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Campaigners note that the scale of their presence has increased markedly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As health facilities across Africa report they are running out of contraceptives, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in July plans to incinerate a vast stockpile of birth control held in a European depot. A global sexual health network states that their destruction will deny countless females from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “heartless and dangerous”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains unresolved as local authorities will not allow perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which cuts American funding for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the ban was reimposed in the first month of the year. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in October, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. Further specifics about the policy's widened application are anticipated next year. A director of a major health partnership says extending the reach will have “catastrophic impacts”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being negotiated with countries in Africa will become contingent upon adopting the new, wider policy.
