Five Critical Crucial Incidents in the Attack on the Rights of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
In the previous year, groups dedicated to gender equality were anticipating a return of Donald Trump to office. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The torrent and swiftness of executive orders issued from the White House were seen as a intentional maneuver to overwhelm and create panic. The tactic proved effective – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as groups rushed to fill the gap left by a freeze on international development funds. But that was just the beginning.
The US administration has been the key driver, bolstered by fervent lobbying efforts by ultra-conservative groups seizing the opportunity to strengthen global ties with political allies.
The movement against gender equality refers to a global network of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as billionaire families and individuals that work to dismantle gains in a variety of areas. These include pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They achieve this through pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We analyze five episodes that impacted the protection, honor, and existence of women and girls.
The Dismantling of USAID
In the month of March, a month and a half following a prominent humanitarian funder is halted, causing turmoil around the world, a leading figure in the administration reveals that over eighty percent of the body's projects will be terminated. US diplomats, former presidents and humanitarian and health experts denounce the action, stating that people will die as a result. Rights defenders say that the closure of the organization is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and family planning and reproductive care. Many organisations say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by reduced funding, especially in war zones. As the year ends, data shows how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with millions more to come. Another pair of leading funders follow with their own cuts. A director of a global justice organization says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance 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 luxury Manhattan venue for a biannual gathering held concurrently with the international conference on women's rights. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in buoyant mood as they celebrate changes in American foreign policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the gender equality forum with a stark warning that “the venom of male dominance” is resurgent, after a study indicates that anti-rights actors are deliberately weakening longstanding consensus on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa themed around the conventional household and state autonomy sparks alarm among human rights defenders. In early May, a national leader and spouse open a large assembly to resist 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 US and European anti-rights figures, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker calls on African NGOs to stand up to “radical global social engineering” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a prominent church hosts a family strengthening conference in the region, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the extent of foreign involvement has grown significantly.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in July plans to incinerate a vast stockpile of birth control held in a storage facility in Belgium. A major reproductive health federation states that their elimination will deprive countless females from access to birth control, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains at a standstill as host nation officials refuse to permit perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, 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 expand the global gag rule to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. Further specifics about the policy's widened application are anticipated next year. A leader in global maternal health says widening the scope will have “unimaginable effects”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being negotiated with countries in Africa will become conditional on accepting the new, wider policy.
