Five Defining Significant Developments in the Rollback of the Rights of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
This time last year, women’s rights organisations were steeling themselves against a new Trump administration. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The volume and speed of presidential directives coming out of the White House were regarded as a deliberate tactic to paralyze through overload. The tactic proved effective – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as groups rushed to address the shortfall left by a major funding freeze. But that was just the beginning.
The American government has been the main instigator, supported by intense advocacy work by far-right organisations seizing the opportunity to forge international alliances with political allies.
Often termed the anti-gender movement denotes an international coalition of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as affluent financiers and clans that seek to undermine forward movement on multiple topics. This encompasses reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They do this by pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We examine five episodes that influenced the protection, honor, and existence of girls and women.
The Dismantling of USAID
In early spring, a month and a half following a key American development organization is its funds are blocked, causing turmoil around the world, a senior US official reveals that a vast majority of the body's projects will be terminated. American foreign service officers, former presidents and relief and public health authorities decry the decision, warning that lives will be lost. Activists say that the demise of the agency is not just a financial shortfall, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and family planning and reproductive care. A multitude of agencies say females will bear the brunt by reduced funding, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, reports confirm how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with many more millions at risk. Two other major donor nations announce their own austerity measures. A director of a global justice organization says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In the same month, several conservative religious groups meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a biannual gathering held concurrently with the international conference on women's rights. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in high spirits as they welcome new Washington directives on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the gender equality forum with a grave caution that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is returning, after a analysis demonstrates that opponents of gender equality are deliberately weakening longstanding consensus on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa focused on the traditional family and national sovereignty sparks alarm among rights advocates. In the start of May, a national leader and spouse open a large assembly to combat what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A few days later, another regional summit on family values is held. Both events are graced by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker urges African NGOs to push back against “radical global social engineering” of global institutions. In the following month, a prominent church hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in West Africa, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the scale of their presence has grown significantly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
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 millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a storage facility in Belgium. A major reproductive health federation states that their destruction will deny countless females from family planning options, 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 prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains at a standstill as host nation officials are blocking usable products to be destroyed.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which halts US aid to groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the rule was reinstated in January. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. 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 cover diversity programmes. Additional information regarding the policy's widened application are likely forthcoming. A expert in child welfare says widening the scope will have “catastrophic impacts”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that new US aid packages being arranged with states on the continent will become conditional on accepting the expanded global gag.
