Five Significant Developments in the Attack on the Rights of Females in the Year 2025.
Twelve months prior, organisations advocating for women's rights were preparing for a return of Donald Trump to office. Scarcely anyone expected. The sheer number and rapid pace of executive orders coming out of the White House were seen as a premeditated approach to overwhelm and create panic. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as organisations scrambled to plug the hole left by a freeze on international development funds. But this was only the precursor.
The Washington leadership has been the key driver, aided by intense advocacy work by religious fundamentalist networks seizing the opportunity to strengthen global ties with like-minded governments.
The movement against gender equality refers to a global network of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as affluent financiers and clans that strive to weaken gains in a variety of areas. Areas targeted involve abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They achieve this through advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We analyze five junctures that shaped the security, respect, and well-being of girls and women.
The Demise of a Major Aid Agency
In the month of March, six weeks after a prominent humanitarian funder is its funds are blocked, causing global disruption, a leading figure in the administration announces that a vast majority of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. US diplomats, past leaders and aid and medical specialists denounce the action, warning that people will die as a result. Activists say that the closure of the organization is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and family planning and reproductive care. Many organisations say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by waning support, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with many more millions at risk. Additional key contributing countries proceed with parallel slashes. A leader of an international advocacy group says a choice to reduce international development funding is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In March, several Christian-right organisations meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a two-day conference held in parallel with the annual UN Women gathering. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they welcome changes in American foreign policy 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 back, after a report shows that groups opposing progressive rights are actively undermining longstanding consensus on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa centered on the conservative family structures and national independence raises concerns among rights advocates. In May, a head of state and partner open a significant conference to resist what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A shortly thereafter, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are graced by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker urges African NGOs to resist “international liberal agenda” of multilateral bodies. In June, a major religious institution hosts a family strengthening conference in an African nation, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Campaigners note that the extent of foreign involvement has grown significantly.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As health facilities across Africa report they are running out of contraceptives, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in July plans to dispose of a vast stockpile of birth control held in a storage facility in Belgium. A leading family planning organization states that their destruction will deny a huge female population from access to birth control, 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 calculated move to control fertility”. 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 declines every proposal. 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 prohibits Washington's support 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 January. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Additional information regarding the policy's widened application are anticipated next year. A expert in child welfare says widening the scope will have “catastrophic impacts”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being negotiated with countries in Africa will become conditional on accepting the expanded global gag.
