A Quintet of Landmark Occurrences in the Erosion of the Rights of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
A year ago, feminist advocacy groups were preparing for a second Trump term. Few were prepared for. The torrent and swiftness of executive orders originating in the White House were interpreted as a calculated strategy to cause confusion and fear. The tactic proved effective – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as networks struggled to plug the hole left by a major funding freeze. But the situation was about to worsen.
The Washington leadership has been the central catalyst, aided by vigorous campaigning by religious fundamentalist networks seizing the opportunity to solidify transnational relationships with political allies.
This opposition to progressive rights describes a worldwide alliance of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that seek to undermine advances on numerous fronts. This encompasses reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They accomplish their goals by lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We examine five moments that affected the welfare, autonomy, and survival of women and girls.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In the month of March, six weeks after a prominent humanitarian funder is its funds are blocked, causing international chaos, a senior US official states that a vast majority of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. Career diplomats, ex-presidents and aid and medical specialists decry the decision, stating that mortality will increase. Human rights advocates say that the closure of the organization is not just a financial shortfall, it is a savage attack on human rights and birth control and maternal healthcare. Many organisations say females will bear the brunt by waning support, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, data shows how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Additional key contributing countries follow with their own cuts. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is a move to appease a political ally.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In March, several Christian-right organisations meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a biannual gathering held alongside the international conference on women's rights. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they applaud new Washington directives on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the women’s summit with a stark warning that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is back, after a analysis demonstrates that opponents of gender equality are systematically eroding historic agreements on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the summer, a cluster of meetings in Africa centered on the conservative family structures and national independence sparks alarm among equality campaigners. In the start of May, a head of state and partner open a significant conference to push back on what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A soon after, another continental gathering on family values is held. Both events are attended by leading American and European conservative activists, including heads of influential networks. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to push back against “international liberal agenda” of global institutions. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a family strengthening conference in West Africa, an event that health activists say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the extent of foreign involvement has increased markedly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are facing shortages of birth control, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in midsummer plans to dispose of a vast stockpile of birth control held in a storage facility in Belgium. A major reproductive health federation states that their destruction will deny 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 ideological decision “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. 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 refuses all offers. The situation remains unresolved as local authorities refuse to permit usable products to be destroyed.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Reviving the global gag rule, which halts US aid to groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the ban was reimposed in the first month of the year. The administration also reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. Additional information regarding the policy's widened application are anticipated next year. A expert in child welfare says broadening the policy will have “unimaginable effects”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that fresh American assistance deals being negotiated with countries in Africa will become contingent upon adopting the new, wider policy.
