Five Significant Developments in the Assault on the Rights of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
This time last year, organisations advocating for women's rights were bracing themselves for a second Trump term. Scarcely anyone expected. The flood and velocity of presidential directives coming out of the White House were interpreted as a deliberate tactic to cause confusion and fear. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as organisations scrambled to address the shortfall left by a freeze on international development funds. But this was only the precursor.
The American government has been the main instigator, supported by intense advocacy work by ultra-conservative groups seizing the opportunity to forge international alliances with like-minded governments.
The anti-rights movement describes a worldwide alliance of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as affluent financiers and clans that work to dismantle forward movement on multiple topics. This encompasses access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They achieve this through lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We review five episodes that impacted the welfare, autonomy, and survival of females globally.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In March, shortly after a major US aid agency is suspended, causing international chaos, a senior US official announces that the lion's share of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. American foreign service officers, ex-presidents and humanitarian and health experts denounce the action, stating that lives will be lost. Activists say that the demise of the agency is more than a funding crisis, it is a savage attack on human rights and birth control and maternal healthcare. Many organisations say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by diminishing aid, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, reports confirm how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with millions more to come. Two other major donor nations announce their own austerity measures. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a choice to reduce international development funding is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In the same month, several Christian-right organisations meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a two-day conference held in parallel with the annual UN Women gathering. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in high spirits as they welcome changes in American foreign policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the gender equality forum with a grave caution that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is returning, after a study indicates that opponents of gender equality are deliberately weakening historic agreements on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the summer, a cluster of meetings in Africa centered on the conventional household and state autonomy raises concerns among equality campaigners. In May, a head of state and partner open a large assembly to resist what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A soon after, another regional summit on traditional morals is held. Both events are graced by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker calls on African NGOs to resist “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of international organizations. In the following month, a prominent church hosts a family strengthening conference in an African nation, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Campaigners note that the scale of their presence has expanded considerably.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in July plans to destroy millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a storage facility in Belgium. A major reproductive health federation states that their elimination will deprive millions of women and girls from family planning options, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains in deadlock as the regional government are blocking the destruction of viable medicines.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which halts US aid to groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the policy was restored in January. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in October, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. Additional information regarding the expansion of the rule are likely forthcoming. A director of a major health partnership says broadening the policy will have “catastrophic impacts”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that fresh American assistance deals being discussed with African nations will become dependent on agreeing to the expanded global gag.
