Five Key Moments in the Assault on the Rights of Women and Girls in 2025.
A year ago, organisations advocating for women's rights were bracing themselves for a Trump presidency sequel. Hardly anyone anticipated. The volume and speed of White House mandates coming out of the White House were interpreted as a premeditated approach to overwhelm and create panic. This strategy had its intended impact – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as networks struggled to fill the gap left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But that was just the beginning.
The Washington leadership has been the key driver, bolstered by fervent lobbying efforts by religious fundamentalist networks seizing the opportunity to solidify transnational relationships with political allies.
This opposition to progressive rights signifies a transnational grouping of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that seek to undermine 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 influencing policymakers, funding litigation, undermining global initiatives to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We examine five junctures that affected the welfare, autonomy, and survival of the female population.
The Demise of a Major Aid Agency
In the month of March, six weeks after a prominent humanitarian funder is its funds are blocked, causing widespread distress, a leading figure in the administration reveals that a vast majority of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. American foreign service officers, past leaders and aid and medical specialists denounce the action, predicting that people will die as a result. Activists say that the dismantling of this institution is more than a funding crisis, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Numerous groups say females will bear the brunt by diminishing aid, especially in war zones. As the year ends, reports confirm how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Additional key contributing countries follow with their own cuts. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a choice to reduce international development funding is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
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 two-day conference held concurrently with the international conference on women's rights. It is an opportunity to share tactics 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 global conference with a somber alert that “the poison of patriarchy” is resurgent, after a analysis demonstrates that anti-rights actors are deliberately weakening longstanding consensus on fundamental freedoms for women 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 triggers anxiety among human rights defenders. In early May, a president and first lady open a large assembly to combat what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A soon after, another continental gathering on family values is held. Both events are participated in by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including presidents of prominent organizations. 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 health activists say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Advocates remark that the level of external participation has increased markedly.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
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 incinerate millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a European depot. A leading family planning organization states that their incineration will prevent millions of women and girls from family planning options, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “callous and reckless”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains at a standstill as host nation officials will not allow perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Reviving the global gag rule, which halts US aid to groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the ban was reimposed in January. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. 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 encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. More details on the broader enforcement are likely forthcoming. A expert in child welfare says broadening the policy will have “unimaginable effects”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that fresh American assistance deals being discussed with African nations will become conditional on accepting the broadened restrictions.
