Five Crucial Incidents in the Attack on the Rights of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
Twelve months prior, organisations advocating for women's rights were steeling themselves against a new Trump administration. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The volume and speed of executive orders emanating from the White House were seen as a premeditated approach to cause confusion and fear. In many ways it worked – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as organisations scrambled to compensate for the loss left by a major funding freeze. But that was just the beginning.
The Washington leadership has been the central catalyst, aided by intense advocacy work by ultra-conservative groups seizing the opportunity to strengthen global ties with like-minded governments.
This opposition to progressive rights refers to a global network of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that seek to undermine forward movement on multiple topics. This covers pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They do this by pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We look at five moments that impacted the security, respect, and well-being of girls and women.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In early spring, six weeks after a major US aid agency is its funds are blocked, causing widespread distress, a senior US official announces that the lion's share of the organization's initiatives will be axed. Career diplomats, ex-presidents and humanitarian and health experts decry the decision, warning that lives will be lost. Rights defenders say that the demise of the agency is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and family planning and reproductive care. Many organisations say the impact on girls and women will be severe by reduced funding, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with many more millions at risk. Another pair of leading funders follow with their own cuts. A leader of an international advocacy group says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In March, 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 chance to exchange strategies on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in buoyant mood as they welcome new Washington directives on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the gender equality forum with a grave caution that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is resurgent, after a report shows that anti-rights actors are systematically eroding longstanding consensus on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the warmer months, a series of conferences in Africa centered on the conventional household and state autonomy sparks alarm among rights advocates. In the start of May, a national leader and spouse open a significant conference to combat what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A soon after, another regional summit on conservative ethics is held. Both events are graced by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to push back against “radical global social engineering” of global institutions. In June, a prominent church hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in an African nation, an event that health activists say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Activists observe that the level of external participation has increased markedly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are facing shortages of birth control, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in July plans to dispose of a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a European depot. A major reproductive health federation states that their incineration will prevent millions of women and girls from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A international emergency medical charity 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 in deadlock as the regional government are blocking usable products to be destroyed.
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 commonplace under certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the ban was reimposed in January. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in the autumn, 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 encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. Further specifics about the broader enforcement are anticipated next year. A leader in global maternal health says widening the scope will have “devastating consequences”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that fresh American assistance deals being negotiated with countries in Africa will become contingent upon adopting the broadened restrictions.
