A Quintet of Pivotal Events in the Rollback of the Freedoms of Women and Girls in 2025.
In the previous year, feminist advocacy groups were anticipating a Trump presidency sequel. Few were prepared for. The sheer number and rapid pace of administrative decrees issued from the White House were interpreted as a deliberate tactic to paralyze through overload. In many ways it worked – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as agencies hastened to fill the gap left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But the situation was about to worsen.
The Washington leadership has been the main instigator, bolstered by relentless activism by religious fundamentalist networks using the moment to build worldwide connections with like-minded governments.
The anti-rights movement denotes an international coalition of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as affluent financiers and clans that aim to roll back forward movement on multiple topics. These include access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They achieve this through pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We examine five junctures that affected the security, respect, and well-being of women and girls.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In early spring, a month and a half following a key American development organization is frozen, causing widespread distress, a top American diplomat confirms that nearly all of the body's projects will be terminated. American foreign service officers, ex-presidents and aid and medical specialists criticize the move, predicting that mortality will increase. Activists say that the dismantling of this institution is not just a financial shortfall, 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 reduced funding, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, evidence indicates how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Additional key contributing countries follow with their own cuts. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a move to appease a political ally.
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 strategic summit held concurrently with the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in buoyant mood as they welcome shifts in US policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the global conference with a grave caution that “the venom of male dominance” is resurgent, after a analysis demonstrates that groups opposing progressive rights are actively undermining established norms on key women’s rights issues around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the summer, a cluster of meetings in Africa themed around the conventional household and state autonomy raises concerns among human rights defenders. In the start of May, a national leader and spouse open a major forum to push back on what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A soon after, another continental gathering on traditional morals is held. Both events are participated in by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker urges African NGOs to stand up to “international liberal agenda” of multilateral bodies. In June, a major religious institution hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in the region, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Activists observe that the level of external participation has grown significantly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As health facilities across Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in July plans to incinerate a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a storage facility in Belgium. A major reproductive health federation states that their elimination will deprive a huge female population from access to birth control, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “callous and reckless”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains at a standstill as local authorities are blocking perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which prohibits Washington's support 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 the first month of the year. The administration also reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in October, the US announces it intends to broaden the scope of the policy to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. Additional information regarding the policy's widened application are likely forthcoming. A director of a major health partnership says broadening the policy will have “devastating consequences”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being arranged with states on the continent will become conditional on accepting the new, wider policy.
