Five Pivotal Events in the Challenge to the Rights of Females in 2025.
Twelve months prior, women’s rights organisations were anticipating a new Trump administration. Hardly anyone anticipated. The sheer number and rapid pace of executive orders coming out of the White House were interpreted as a intentional maneuver to overwhelm and create panic. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as agencies hastened to plug the hole left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But this was only the precursor.
The American government has been the main instigator, complemented by intense advocacy work by religious fundamentalist networks seizing the opportunity to solidify transnational relationships with political allies.
The movement against gender equality denotes an international coalition of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that seek to undermine progress across a wide spectrum of issues. This covers access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They accomplish their goals by lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We look at five episodes that impacted the safety, dignity and lives of women and girls.
USAID Dismantled
In early spring, six weeks after a prominent humanitarian funder is halted, causing global disruption, a senior US official states that over eighty percent of the body's projects will be terminated. Career diplomats, past leaders and humanitarian and health experts condemn the news, 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 access to contraception and reproductive health services. Numerous groups say females will bear the brunt by waning support, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, reports confirm how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with many more millions at risk. Another pair of leading funders announce their own austerity measures. A leader of an international advocacy group says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a move to appease a political ally.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
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 forum to discuss methods on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in high spirits as they welcome new Washington directives on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the women’s summit with a grave caution that “the venom of male dominance” is returning, after a analysis demonstrates that opponents of gender equality are systematically eroding historic agreements on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa centered on the traditional family and national sovereignty triggers anxiety among human rights defenders. In early 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 few days later, another Pan-African conference on traditional morals is held. Both events are participated in by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker calls on African NGOs to resist “international liberal agenda” of global institutions. In the following month, a major religious institution hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in an African nation, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Activists observe that the extent of foreign involvement has increased markedly.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As health facilities across Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in midsummer plans to destroy a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a storage facility in Belgium. A leading family planning organization states that their destruction will deny 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 ideological decision “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains unresolved as the regional government will not allow perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Reviving the global gag rule, which cuts American funding for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the rule was reinstated 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 extend the restrictions to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. More details on the broader enforcement are likely forthcoming. A director of a major health partnership says broadening the policy will have “devastating consequences”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being discussed with African nations will become dependent on agreeing to the broadened restrictions.
