Five Key Moments in the Erosion of the Rights of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
In the previous year, feminist advocacy groups were steeling themselves against a Trump presidency sequel. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The torrent and swiftness of White House mandates originating in the White House were viewed as a intentional maneuver to overwhelm and create panic. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as organisations scrambled to compensate for the loss left by a major funding freeze. But this merely marked the opening act.
The American government has been the central catalyst, bolstered by relentless activism by ultra-conservative groups seizing the opportunity to strengthen global ties with sympathetic regimes.
Often termed the anti-gender movement denotes an international coalition of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that aim to roll back forward movement on multiple topics. This encompasses pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They achieve this through lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We examine five episodes that impacted the protection, honor, and existence of girls and women.
The Demise of a Major Aid Agency
In early spring, shortly after a key American development organization is its funds are blocked, causing global disruption, a senior US official confirms that over eighty percent of the organization's initiatives will be axed. American foreign service officers, past leaders and relief and public health authorities decry the decision, warning that mortality will increase. Activists say that the closure of the organization 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 women and girls will be disproportionately affected by diminishing aid, especially in war zones. As the year ends, evidence indicates how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Two other major donor nations initiate similar reductions. A director of a global justice organization says a move to cut foreign aid drastically 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 upmarket New York hotel for a strategic summit held in parallel with the international conference on women's rights. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in buoyant mood as they celebrate changes in American foreign policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the global conference with a somber alert that “the venom of male dominance” is returning, after a study indicates that opponents of gender equality are systematically eroding longstanding consensus on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa focused on the conservative family structures and national independence triggers anxiety among human rights defenders. In May, a head of state and partner open a significant conference to push back on what they label external influences undermining local norms. A few days later, another regional summit on family values is held. Both events are participated in by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to push back against “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a global faith group 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 scale of their presence has grown significantly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, 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 storage facility in Belgium. A major reproductive health federation 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 ideological decision “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “callous and reckless”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains in deadlock as local authorities 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 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 reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in October, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. More details on the broader enforcement are anticipated next year. A expert in child welfare says extending the reach will have “unimaginable effects”. Pro-choice activists fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being negotiated with countries in Africa will become contingent upon adopting the expanded global gag.
