Five Critical Crucial Incidents in the Rollback of the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
This time last year, organisations advocating for women's rights were steeling themselves against a second Trump term. Scarcely anyone expected. The sheer number and rapid pace of presidential directives originating in the White House were viewed as a deliberate tactic to cause confusion and fear. This strategy had its intended impact – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as groups rushed to fill the gap left by a major funding freeze. But this was only the precursor.
The Washington leadership has been the primary force, supported by vigorous campaigning by ultra-conservative groups capitalizing on the climate to solidify transnational relationships with ideological partners.
Often termed the anti-gender movement describes a worldwide alliance of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as billionaire families and individuals that aim to roll back progress across a wide spectrum of issues. Areas targeted involve abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They pursue this agenda via influencing policymakers, funding litigation, undermining global initiatives to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We examine five moments that shaped the safety, dignity and lives of girls and women.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In the month of March, shortly after a key American development organization is suspended, causing international chaos, a top American diplomat reveals that a vast majority of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. US diplomats, ex-presidents and humanitarian and health experts denounce the action, stating that fatalities will ensue. Activists say that the closure of the organization is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and birth control and maternal healthcare. Many organisations say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by waning support, especially in war zones. As the year ends, reports confirm how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with millions more to come. Another pair of leading funders initiate similar reductions. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a move to appease a political ally.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In March, several conservative religious groups meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a biannual gathering held concurrently with the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in optimistic frame of mind 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 somber alert that “the poison of patriarchy” is resurgent, after a study indicates that anti-rights actors are deliberately weakening longstanding consensus on key women’s rights issues around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa centered on the traditional family and national sovereignty sparks alarm among equality campaigners. In the start of May, a national leader and spouse open a large assembly to resist what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A few days later, another continental gathering on family values is held. Both events are graced by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including heads of influential networks. One speaker urges African NGOs to resist “international liberal agenda” of global institutions. In the following month, a major religious institution hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in the region, an event that reproductive rights advocates 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 clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are running out of contraceptives, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in midsummer plans to incinerate millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a European depot. A leading family planning organization states that their elimination will deprive a huge female population from family planning options, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. 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 “cruel and irresponsible”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains unresolved as the regional government will not allow perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reviving the global gag rule, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the rule was reinstated in January. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in October, 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 expansion of the rule are anticipated next year. A director of a major health partnership says broadening the policy will have “unimaginable effects”. Pro-choice activists fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being arranged with states on the continent will become conditional on accepting the new, wider policy.
