Five Landmark Occurrences in the Assault on the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
Twelve months prior, women’s rights organisations were steeling themselves against a new Trump administration. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The sheer number and rapid pace of administrative decrees originating in the White House were viewed as a premeditated approach to induce a state of shock. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as groups rushed to fill the gap left by a sudden aid suspension. But the situation was about to worsen.
The US administration has been the central catalyst, bolstered by intense advocacy work by ultra-conservative groups exploiting the situation to strengthen global ties with political allies.
The movement against gender equality refers to a global network of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that aim to roll back gains in a variety of areas. 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 advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We examine five junctures that affected the protection, honor, and existence of girls and women.
The Dismantling of USAID
In the month of March, six weeks after a major US aid agency is suspended, causing turmoil around the world, a senior US official reveals that a vast majority of the organization's initiatives will be axed. US diplomats, former presidents and relief and public health authorities denounce the action, stating that lives will be lost. Human rights advocates 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 women and girls will be disproportionately affected by shrinking assistance, especially in war zones. As the year ends, reports confirm how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with many more millions at risk. Another pair of leading funders announce their own austerity measures. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In March, several conservative religious groups meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a two-day conference held alongside the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in high spirits as they welcome changes in American foreign policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the global conference with a grave caution that “the venom of male dominance” is returning, after a study indicates that groups opposing progressive rights are deliberately weakening established norms on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa themed around the conventional household and state autonomy sparks alarm among rights advocates. In early May, a national leader and spouse open a major forum to resist what they label external influences undermining local norms. A few days later, another regional summit on traditional morals is held. Both events are graced by leading American and European conservative activists, including heads of influential networks. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to resist “international liberal agenda” of multilateral bodies. In June, a global faith group hosts a family strengthening conference in an African nation, an event that health activists say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Advocates remark that the level of external participation has increased markedly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in midsummer plans to destroy a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a warehouse in Europe. A major reproductive health federation states that their incineration will prevent countless females from access to birth control, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. 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 refuses all offers. The situation remains at a standstill as host nation officials refuse to permit usable products to be destroyed.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which halts US aid to 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 signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in October, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. Additional information regarding the broader enforcement are likely forthcoming. A leader in global maternal health says broadening the policy will have “devastating consequences”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that fresh American assistance deals being negotiated with countries in Africa will become conditional on accepting the expanded global gag.
