Five Defining Significant Developments in the Rollback of the Rights of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
This time last year, organisations advocating for women's rights were bracing themselves for a second Trump term. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The volume and speed of White House mandates originating in the White House were seen as a intentional maneuver to overwhelm and create panic. The tactic proved effective – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as groups rushed to fill the gap left by a major funding freeze. But this merely marked the opening act.
The American government has been the primary force, aided by vigorous campaigning by deeply conservative factions seizing the opportunity to forge international alliances with political allies.
Often termed the anti-gender movement refers to a global network of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as billionaire families and individuals that strive to weaken gains in a variety of areas. This covers pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They pursue this agenda via advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We analyze five moments that affected the welfare, autonomy, and survival of the female population.
The Dismantling of USAID
In early spring, a month and a half following a major US aid agency is halted, causing international chaos, a senior US official announces that the lion's share of the organization's initiatives will be axed. US diplomats, past leaders and relief and public health authorities denounce the action, warning that people will die as a result. Activists say that the demise of the agency is not just a financial shortfall, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and family planning and reproductive care. Many organisations say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by shrinking assistance, especially in war zones. As the year ends, reports confirm how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with many more millions at risk. Additional key contributing countries initiate similar reductions. A director of a global justice organization says a choice to reduce international development funding is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In the same month, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a two-day conference held alongside the annual UN Women gathering. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in high spirits as they applaud changes in American foreign policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the gender equality forum with a somber alert that “the venom of male dominance” is returning, after a study indicates that opponents of gender equality are systematically eroding established norms on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa centered on the conservative family structures and national independence triggers anxiety among rights advocates. In May, a president and first lady open a large assembly to combat what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A few days later, another regional summit on conservative ethics is held. Both events are participated in by leading American and European conservative activists, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker urges African NGOs to resist “international liberal agenda” of multilateral bodies. In June, a major religious institution 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. Advocates remark that the extent of foreign involvement has expanded considerably.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in midsummer plans to dispose of a vast stockpile of birth control held in a European depot. A leading family planning organization states that their destruction will deny a huge female population from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “callous and reckless”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains in deadlock as local authorities refuse to permit the destruction of viable medicines.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the rule was reinstated in January. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. Further specifics about the broader enforcement are anticipated next year. A leader in global maternal health says broadening the policy will have “unimaginable effects”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being negotiated with countries in Africa will become conditional on accepting the new, wider policy.
