Five Crucial Incidents in the Rollback of the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
This time last year, groups dedicated to gender equality were steeling themselves against a new Trump administration. Scarcely anyone expected. The volume and speed of presidential directives issued from the White House were interpreted as a calculated strategy to induce a state of shock. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as organisations scrambled to compensate for the loss left by a freeze on international development funds. But the situation was about to worsen.
The Trump administration has been the central catalyst, bolstered by intense advocacy work by deeply conservative factions exploiting the situation to forge international alliances with like-minded governments.
The movement against gender equality describes a worldwide alliance of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as billionaire families and individuals that strive to weaken advances on numerous fronts. Areas targeted involve access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They pursue this agenda via influencing policymakers, funding litigation, undermining global initiatives to push for parity, disseminating propaganda, and supporting ideologically-matched groups.
We examine five episodes that affected the security, respect, and well-being of girls and women.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In early spring, shortly after a key American development organization is halted, causing widespread distress, a leading figure in the administration reveals that nearly all of the institution's work will be scrapped. US diplomats, ex-presidents and relief and public health authorities condemn the news, stating that mortality will increase. Activists say that the demise of the agency is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and access to contraception and reproductive health services. A multitude of agencies say females will bear the brunt by reduced funding, especially in war zones. As the year ends, evidence indicates 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. Two other major donor nations follow with their own cuts. A leader of an international advocacy group 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 high-end hotel in NYC for a two-day conference held concurrently with the annual UN Women gathering. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in buoyant mood as they applaud shifts in US policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the gender equality forum with a grave caution that “the poison of patriarchy” is returning, after a study indicates that anti-rights actors are actively undermining historic agreements on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa themed around the conventional household and state autonomy raises concerns among human rights defenders. In May, a president and first lady open a large assembly to push back on what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A soon after, another regional summit on conservative ethics is held. Both events are attended by leading American and European conservative activists, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker urges African NGOs to stand up to “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of international organizations. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in the region, an event that health activists say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Activists observe that the level of external participation has grown significantly.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As health facilities across Africa report they are running out of contraceptives, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in July plans to dispose of 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 access to birth control, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. 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 prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “heartless and dangerous”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains at a standstill as the regional government are blocking the destruction of viable medicines.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which halts US aid to groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the policy was restored in the first month of the year. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in October, the US announces it intends to broaden the scope of the policy to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. Additional information regarding the broader enforcement are anticipated next year. A director of a major health partnership says extending the reach will have “devastating consequences”. Pro-choice activists fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being arranged with states on the continent will become dependent on agreeing to the expanded global gag.
