Five Critical Key Moments in the Assault on the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
Twelve months prior, organisations advocating for women's rights were anticipating a second Trump term. Scarcely anyone expected. The torrent and swiftness of presidential directives issued from the White House were regarded as a calculated strategy to paralyze through overload. This strategy had its intended impact – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as groups rushed to fill the gap left by a sudden aid suspension. But that was just the beginning.
The Washington leadership has been the primary force, bolstered by vigorous campaigning by ultra-conservative groups exploiting the situation to strengthen global ties with like-minded governments.
This opposition to progressive rights refers to a global network of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as affluent financiers and clans that work to dismantle forward movement on multiple topics. This encompasses access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They do this by lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We examine five moments that influenced the safety, dignity and lives of the female population.
The Demise of a Major Aid Agency
In the month of March, shortly after a major US aid agency is suspended, causing international chaos, a senior US official states that the lion's share of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. US diplomats, past leaders and humanitarian and health experts condemn the news, warning that people will die as a result. Human rights advocates say that the dismantling of this institution is more than a funding crisis, it is a savage attack on human rights and birth control and maternal healthcare. Numerous groups say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by diminishing aid, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, reports confirm how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Another pair of leading funders announce their own austerity measures. A director of a global justice organization says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In March, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a biannual gathering held in parallel with 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 welcome shifts in US policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the gender equality forum with a stark warning that “the venom of male dominance” is resurgent, after a analysis demonstrates that anti-rights actors are systematically eroding historic agreements on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the summer, a series of conferences in Africa themed around the conservative family structures and national independence triggers anxiety among equality campaigners. In May, a president and first lady open a large assembly to combat what they label external influences undermining local norms. A soon after, another Pan-African conference on family values is held. Both events are participated in by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including heads of influential networks. One speaker urges African NGOs to resist “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of global institutions. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in an African nation, an event that health activists say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Activists observe that the extent of foreign involvement has increased markedly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in July plans to destroy a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a European depot. A major reproductive health federation states that their elimination will deprive millions of women and girls from access to birth control, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains at a standstill as the regional government refuse to permit perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Reviving the global gag rule, which cuts American funding for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the rule was reinstated in the first month of the year. 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 sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Further specifics about the broader enforcement are anticipated next year. A leader in global maternal health says widening the scope will have “devastating consequences”. Pro-choice activists fear that new US aid packages being arranged with states on the continent will become dependent on agreeing to the expanded global gag.
