Five Defining Crucial Incidents in the Attack on the Rights of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
A year ago, groups dedicated to gender equality were preparing for a return of Donald Trump to office. Few were prepared for. The flood and velocity of administrative decrees originating in the White House were seen as a calculated strategy to overwhelm and create panic. The tactic proved effective – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as agencies hastened to address the shortfall left by a freeze on international development funds. But the situation was about to worsen.
The US administration has been the key driver, complemented by intense advocacy work by far-right organisations using the moment to strengthen global ties with political allies.
The movement against gender equality signifies a transnational grouping of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as affluent financiers and clans that strive to weaken progress across a wide spectrum of issues. This encompasses abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They achieve this through lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to push for parity, disseminating propaganda, and supporting ideologically-matched groups.
We examine five episodes that affected the safety, dignity and lives of females globally.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In March, shortly after a key American development organization is frozen, causing turmoil around the world, a leading figure in the administration states that over eighty percent of the body's projects will be terminated. Career diplomats, past leaders and aid and medical specialists condemn the news, warning that mortality will increase. Human rights advocates say that the closure of the organization is more than a funding crisis, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and birth control and maternal healthcare. Many organisations say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by reduced funding, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, reports confirm how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with many more millions at risk. Additional key contributing countries initiate similar reductions. A director of a global justice organization says a choice to reduce international development funding is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In the same month, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a strategic summit held concurrently with the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in high spirits as they celebrate new Washington directives on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the global conference with a stark warning that “the poison of patriarchy” is returning, after a analysis demonstrates that groups opposing progressive rights are actively undermining longstanding consensus on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the warmer months, a series of conferences in Africa themed around the conventional household and state autonomy sparks alarm among human rights defenders. In early May, a head of state and partner open a major forum to resist what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A soon after, another continental gathering on traditional morals is held. Both events are graced by leading American and European conservative activists, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker calls on African NGOs to stand up to “international liberal agenda” of global institutions. In June, a global faith group hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in the region, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Campaigners note that the level of external participation has grown significantly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As health facilities across Africa report they are running out of contraceptives, 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 warehouse in Europe. A leading family planning organization states that their elimination will deprive millions of women and girls from access to birth control, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “callous and reckless”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains unresolved as host nation officials will not allow perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which halts US aid to 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 rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. 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 broader enforcement are anticipated next year. A expert in child welfare says widening the scope will have “devastating consequences”. Pro-choice activists fear that fresh American assistance deals being negotiated with countries in Africa will become conditional on accepting the new, wider policy.
