Five Pivotal Events in the Attack on the Rights of Females in the Year 2025.
In the previous year, organisations advocating for women's rights were bracing themselves for a return of Donald Trump to office. Few were prepared for. The volume and speed of administrative decrees emanating from the White House were viewed as a deliberate tactic to cause confusion and fear. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as organisations scrambled to fill the gap left by a freeze on international development funds. But the situation was about to worsen.
The American government has been the central catalyst, supported by vigorous campaigning by ultra-conservative groups seizing the opportunity to build worldwide connections with political allies.
Often termed the anti-gender movement denotes an international coalition of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that strive to weaken progress across a wide spectrum of issues. These include access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They do this by pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We review five instances that affected the welfare, autonomy, and survival of females globally.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In early spring, six weeks after a major US aid agency is suspended, causing global disruption, a leading figure in the administration states that a vast majority of the body's projects will be terminated. Career diplomats, ex-presidents and relief and public health authorities denounce the action, predicting that mortality will increase. Human rights advocates say that the closure of the organization is not just a financial shortfall, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and family planning and reproductive care. A multitude of agencies say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by shrinking assistance, especially in conflict areas. 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. Two other major donor nations initiate similar reductions. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In the same month, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a strategic summit held in parallel with the annual UN Women gathering. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they welcome shifts in US policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the gender equality forum with a somber alert that “the venom of male dominance” is back, after a report shows that opponents of gender equality are deliberately weakening historic agreements on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa focused on the conservative family structures and national independence triggers anxiety among rights advocates. In the start of May, a national leader and spouse open a large assembly to push back on what they label external influences undermining local norms. A shortly thereafter, another continental gathering on conservative ethics is held. Both events are participated in by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker urges African NGOs to resist “radical global social engineering” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in an African nation, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Activists observe that the extent of foreign involvement has increased markedly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are facing shortages of birth control, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in midsummer plans to dispose of millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a warehouse in Europe. A leading family planning organization states that their incineration will prevent countless females from access to birth control, 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 “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains in deadlock as host nation officials are blocking usable products to be destroyed.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which cuts American funding for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the policy was restored 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 governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. Additional information regarding the policy's widened application are likely forthcoming. A leader in global maternal health says widening the scope will have “devastating consequences”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being negotiated with countries in Africa will become contingent upon adopting the new, wider policy.
