Five Major Landmark Occurrences in the Challenge to the Freedoms of Women and Girls in 2025.
A year ago, women’s rights organisations were bracing themselves for a second Trump term. Hardly anyone anticipated. The sheer number and rapid pace of administrative decrees issued from the White House were viewed as a premeditated approach to paralyze through overload. The tactic proved effective – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as groups rushed to plug the hole left by a major funding freeze. But that was just the beginning.
The US administration has been the central catalyst, complemented by vigorous campaigning by deeply conservative factions exploiting the situation to solidify transnational relationships with ideological partners.
Often termed the anti-gender movement signifies a transnational grouping of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as affluent financiers and clans that aim to roll back advances on numerous fronts. Areas targeted involve abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They do this by advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We review five junctures that impacted the protection, honor, and existence of females globally.
The Dismantling of USAID
In early spring, shortly after a key American development organization is suspended, causing widespread distress, a senior US official states that a vast majority of the institution's work will be scrapped. Career diplomats, past leaders and aid and medical specialists criticize the move, cautioning that lives will be lost. Human rights advocates say that the demise of the agency is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and birth control and maternal healthcare. A multitude of agencies say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by waning support, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, evidence indicates how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with millions more to come. Two other major donor nations 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.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In the same month, several conservative religious groups meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a two-day conference held concurrently with the international conference on women's rights. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in buoyant mood as they applaud changes in American foreign policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the women’s summit with a somber alert that “the venom of male dominance” is returning, after a report shows that anti-rights actors are actively undermining longstanding consensus on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the summer, a cluster of meetings in Africa centered on the conventional household and state autonomy sparks alarm among human rights defenders. In the start of 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 regional summit on conservative ethics is held. Both events are attended by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to resist “radical global social engineering” of international organizations. In June, a prominent church hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in West Africa, an event that health activists say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Campaigners note that the level of external participation has expanded considerably.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As health facilities across Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in midsummer plans to incinerate a vast stockpile of birth control held in a warehouse in Europe. A major reproductive health federation states that their incineration will prevent countless females from contraceptive supplies, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains unresolved as the regional government are blocking usable products to be destroyed.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, 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 came as no surprise when the ban was reimposed in January. 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 national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. More details on the broader enforcement are anticipated next year. A leader in global maternal health says broadening the policy will have “unimaginable effects”. Pro-choice activists fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being negotiated with countries in Africa will become dependent on agreeing to the new, wider policy.
