Five Defining Crucial Incidents in the Rollback of the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
In the previous year, women’s rights organisations were anticipating a second Trump term. Hardly anyone anticipated. The volume and speed of presidential directives coming out of the White House were interpreted as a deliberate tactic to overwhelm and create panic. In many ways it worked – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as organisations scrambled to compensate for the loss left by a sudden aid suspension. But that was just the beginning.
The Washington leadership has been the main instigator, aided by vigorous campaigning by religious fundamentalist networks capitalizing on the climate to solidify transnational relationships with sympathetic regimes.
The movement against gender equality denotes an international coalition of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as billionaire families and individuals that work to dismantle advances on numerous fronts. This covers access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They do this by influencing policymakers, funding litigation, undermining global initiatives to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We look at five episodes that affected the welfare, autonomy, and survival of the female population.
USAID Dismantled
In March, six weeks after a key American development organization is suspended, causing global disruption, a senior US official reveals that nearly all of the institution's work will be scrapped. US diplomats, past leaders and relief and public health authorities criticize the move, cautioning that people will die as a result. Rights defenders say that the demise of the agency is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a savage attack on human rights and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Many organisations say females will bear the brunt by diminishing aid, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, evidence indicates how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with millions more to come. Two other major donor nations announce their own austerity measures. A leader of an international advocacy group says a choice to reduce international development funding is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
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 alongside the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in high spirits as they celebrate new Washington directives on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the women’s summit with a stark warning that “the venom of male dominance” is back, after a report shows that groups opposing progressive rights are deliberately weakening established norms on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa themed around the conservative family structures and national independence sparks alarm among rights advocates. In early May, a president and first lady open a major forum to push back on what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A soon after, another regional summit on traditional morals is held. Both events are graced by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to push back against “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of global institutions. In June, a major religious institution hosts a family strengthening conference in an African nation, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Campaigners note that the level of external participation has grown significantly.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As health facilities across Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, 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 global sexual health network states that their elimination will deprive countless females from access to birth control, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains unresolved as host nation officials will not allow the destruction of viable medicines.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
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 was anticipated when the ban was reimposed in January. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to broaden the scope of the policy to include sovereign states and UN agencies 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 director of a major health partnership says broadening the policy will have “unimaginable effects”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that new US aid packages being arranged with states on the continent will become dependent on agreeing to the expanded global gag.
