A Quintet of Pivotal Events in the Attack on the Rights of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
In the previous year, groups dedicated to gender equality were preparing for a return of Donald Trump to office. Few were prepared for. The torrent and swiftness of presidential directives originating in the White House were viewed as a deliberate tactic to induce a state of shock. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as groups rushed to fill the gap left by a major funding freeze. But this merely marked the opening act.
The American government has been the central catalyst, aided by intense advocacy work by far-right organisations exploiting the situation to solidify transnational relationships with political allies.
The anti-rights movement refers to a global network of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as billionaire families and individuals that strive to weaken gains in a variety of areas. These include reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They pursue this agenda via influencing policymakers, funding litigation, undermining global initiatives to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We review five junctures that impacted the welfare, autonomy, and survival of females globally.
The Dismantling of USAID
In early spring, six weeks after a prominent humanitarian funder is halted, causing global disruption, a leading figure in the administration states that over eighty percent of the organization's initiatives will be axed. Career diplomats, past leaders and aid and medical specialists decry the decision, stating that fatalities will ensue. Rights defenders say that the dismantling of this institution is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Many organisations say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by diminishing aid, especially in war zones. As the year ends, reports confirm how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Additional key contributing countries initiate similar reductions. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a choice to reduce international development funding is a move to appease a political ally.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
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 opportunity to share tactics on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in high spirits as they welcome shifts in US policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the women’s summit with a grave caution that “the poison of patriarchy” is resurgent, after a report shows that opponents of gender equality are systematically eroding established norms 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 raises concerns among equality campaigners. In early May, a head of state and partner open a significant conference to resist what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A few days later, another regional summit on conservative ethics is held. Both events are participated in by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to stand up to “radical global social engineering” of international organizations. In June, a major religious institution hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in the region, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the scale of their presence has increased markedly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As health facilities across Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in midsummer plans to incinerate a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a European depot. A global sexual health network states that their destruction will deny a huge female population from family planning options, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “callous and reckless”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains in deadlock as local authorities are blocking usable products to be destroyed.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reviving the global gag rule, which cuts American funding for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is typical of 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 broaden the scope of the policy to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. More details on the expansion of the rule are likely forthcoming. A director of a major health partnership says extending the reach will have “devastating consequences”. Pro-choice activists fear that new US aid packages being discussed with African nations will become dependent on agreeing to the broadened restrictions.
