A Quintet of Landmark Occurrences in the Rollback of the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
In the previous year, feminist advocacy groups were anticipating a new Trump administration. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The volume and speed of White House mandates coming out of the White House were viewed as a calculated strategy to cause confusion and fear. In many ways it worked – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as groups rushed to plug the hole left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But that was just the beginning.
The US administration has been the central catalyst, bolstered by fervent lobbying efforts by ultra-conservative groups using the moment to build worldwide connections with ideological partners.
Often termed the anti-gender movement refers to a global network of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as affluent financiers and clans that work to dismantle forward movement on multiple topics. Areas targeted involve reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They achieve this through advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We review five episodes that impacted the security, respect, and well-being of women and girls.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In the month of March, shortly after a key American development organization is frozen, causing international chaos, a senior US official reveals that the lion's share of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. Career diplomats, ex-presidents and aid and medical specialists condemn the news, warning that fatalities will ensue. Human rights advocates say that the closure of the organization is more than a funding crisis, it is a savage attack on human rights and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Many organisations say the impact on girls and women will be severe by waning support, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, evidence indicates how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Two other major donor nations follow with their own cuts. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In the same month, several conservative religious groups meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a two-day conference held alongside the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they applaud new Washington directives on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the gender equality forum with a grave caution that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is returning, after a study indicates that groups opposing progressive rights are deliberately weakening longstanding consensus on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the summer, a series of conferences in Africa centered on the traditional family and national sovereignty sparks alarm among rights advocates. In early May, a national leader and spouse open a major forum to combat what they label external influences undermining local norms. A soon after, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are attended by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to push back against “international liberal agenda” of multilateral bodies. In June, a global faith group hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in West Africa, an event that health activists say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Activists observe that the extent of foreign involvement has increased markedly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
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 destroy a vast stockpile of birth control held in a storage facility in Belgium. A leading family planning organization states that their destruction will deny millions of women and girls from access to birth control, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “heartless and dangerous”. 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.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the rule was reinstated in January. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. 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. Further specifics about the policy's widened application are anticipated next year. A director of a major health partnership says widening the scope will have “unimaginable effects”. Pro-choice activists fear that fresh American assistance deals being negotiated with countries in Africa will become dependent on agreeing to the new, wider policy.
