Five Critical Pivotal Events in the Attack on the Rights of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
In the previous year, women’s rights organisations were bracing themselves for a Trump presidency sequel. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The flood and velocity of executive orders emanating from the White House were interpreted as a deliberate tactic to overwhelm and create panic. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as organisations scrambled to plug the hole left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But this was only the precursor.
The Trump administration has been the central catalyst, bolstered by vigorous campaigning by deeply conservative factions seizing the opportunity to solidify transnational relationships with political allies.
Often termed the anti-gender movement denotes an international coalition of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as billionaire families and individuals that aim to roll back advances on numerous fronts. These include reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They do this by pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to push for parity, disseminating propaganda, and supporting ideologically-matched groups.
We analyze five instances that impacted the welfare, autonomy, and survival of the female population.
USAID Dismantled
In early spring, shortly after a prominent humanitarian funder is halted, causing global disruption, a top American diplomat announces that over eighty percent of the body's projects will be terminated. American foreign service officers, past leaders and aid and medical specialists condemn the news, warning that mortality will increase. Rights defenders say that the closure of the organization is not just a financial shortfall, it is a savage attack on human rights and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Many organisations say females will bear the brunt by shrinking assistance, especially in war zones. As the year ends, evidence indicates how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with many more millions at risk. Another pair of leading funders initiate similar reductions. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a move to appease a political ally.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In the same month, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a biannual gathering held concurrently with the international conference on women's rights. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in buoyant mood as they celebrate shifts in US policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the women’s summit with a somber alert that “the poison of patriarchy” is returning, after a study indicates that anti-rights actors are systematically eroding established norms on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the summer, a cluster of meetings in Africa centered on the traditional family and national sovereignty raises concerns among rights advocates. In early May, a head of state and partner open a large assembly to resist what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A few days later, another continental gathering on family values is held. Both events are participated in by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including heads of influential networks. One speaker calls on African NGOs to resist “radical global social engineering” of global institutions. In June, a prominent church hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in the region, an event that health activists say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Advocates remark that the scale of their presence has increased markedly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are running out of contraceptives, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in July plans to incinerate a vast stockpile of birth control held in a European depot. A major reproductive health federation states that their elimination will deprive millions of women and girls from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “callous and reckless”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains unresolved as host nation officials are blocking usable products to be destroyed.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which cuts American funding for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the ban was reimposed in January. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in October, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. More details on the expansion of the rule are likely forthcoming. A expert in child welfare says broadening the policy will have “devastating consequences”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that new US aid packages being negotiated with countries in Africa will become dependent on agreeing to the broadened restrictions.
