A Quintet of Crucial Incidents in the Assault on the Rights of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
This time last year, feminist advocacy groups were anticipating a Trump presidency sequel. Scarcely anyone expected. The sheer number and rapid pace of presidential directives emanating from the White House were regarded as a premeditated approach to overwhelm and create panic. In many ways it worked – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as networks struggled to plug the hole left by a freeze on international development funds. But this merely marked the opening act.
The US administration has been the key driver, complemented by fervent lobbying efforts by far-right organisations exploiting the situation to strengthen global ties with sympathetic regimes.
The anti-rights movement refers to a global network of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as affluent financiers and clans that aim to roll back 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 analyze five episodes that affected the welfare, autonomy, and survival of women and girls.
The Demise of a Major Aid Agency
In the month of March, a month and a half following a major US aid agency is halted, causing widespread distress, a leading figure in the administration confirms that over eighty percent of the institution's work will be scrapped. American foreign service officers, former presidents and aid and medical specialists decry the decision, predicting that fatalities will ensue. Rights defenders say that the closure of the organization is greater than a budgetary issue, 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 war zones. As the year ends, evidence indicates how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with many more millions at risk. Additional key contributing countries proceed with parallel slashes. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a move to appease a political ally.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In March, several Christian-right organisations meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a two-day conference held alongside 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 celebrate shifts in US policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the gender equality forum with a somber alert that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is returning, after a study indicates that opponents of gender equality are actively undermining established norms on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the summer, a series of conferences in Africa themed around the conventional household and state autonomy raises concerns among equality campaigners. In the start of May, a head of state and partner open a large assembly to resist what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A shortly thereafter, another regional summit on family values is held. Both events are participated in by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker urges African NGOs to resist “radical global social engineering” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a prominent church hosts a family strengthening conference in the region, an event that health activists say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Activists observe that the extent of foreign involvement has expanded considerably.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are running out of contraceptives, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in July plans to destroy a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a warehouse in Europe. A global sexual health network states that their elimination will deprive countless females from family planning options, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “heartless and dangerous”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains in deadlock as the regional government 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 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 reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in October, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. Further specifics about the expansion of the rule are anticipated next year. A director of a major health partnership says extending the reach will have “unimaginable effects”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that fresh American assistance deals being discussed with African nations will become conditional on accepting the expanded global gag.