Five Major Crucial Incidents in the Attack on the Rights of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
This time last year, groups dedicated to gender equality were preparing for a second Trump term. Scarcely anyone expected. The sheer number and rapid pace of executive orders originating in the White House were seen as a calculated strategy to paralyze through overload. This strategy had its intended impact – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as groups rushed to plug the hole left by a sudden aid suspension. But this was only the precursor.
The American government has been the central catalyst, aided by relentless activism by far-right organisations seizing the opportunity to build worldwide connections with sympathetic regimes.
The movement against gender equality denotes an international coalition of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as affluent financiers and clans that strive to weaken forward movement on multiple topics. This covers reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They pursue this agenda via lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We look at five instances that affected the protection, honor, and existence of the female population.
The Dismantling of USAID
In March, a month and a half following a major US aid agency is halted, causing widespread distress, a leading figure in the administration announces that nearly all of the body's projects will be terminated. US diplomats, past leaders and aid and medical specialists criticize the move, stating that people will die as a result. Rights defenders say that the closure of the organization is not just a financial shortfall, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and access to contraception and reproductive health services. A multitude of agencies say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by diminishing aid, especially in war zones. As the year ends, data shows how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with many more millions at risk. Additional key contributing countries initiate similar reductions. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In the same month, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a biannual gathering held concurrently with the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in buoyant mood as they celebrate shifts in US policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the global conference with a stark warning that “the poison of patriarchy” is returning, after a report shows that opponents of gender equality are actively undermining historic agreements on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa focused on the traditional family and national sovereignty raises concerns among human rights defenders. In May, a president and first lady open a large assembly to combat what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A shortly thereafter, another continental gathering on conservative ethics is held. Both events are graced by leading American and European conservative activists, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to stand up to “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of global institutions. In June, a prominent church hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in an African nation, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Activists observe that the extent of foreign involvement has expanded considerably.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are running out of contraceptives, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in midsummer plans to dispose of a vast stockpile of birth control held in a storage facility in Belgium. A leading family planning organization states that their elimination will deprive millions of women and girls from contraceptive supplies, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “callous and reckless”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains at a standstill as host nation officials will not allow usable products to be destroyed.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reviving the global gag rule, which halts US aid to groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the policy was restored in January. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in October, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Additional information regarding the expansion of the rule are likely forthcoming. A leader in global maternal health says extending the reach will have “catastrophic impacts”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that new US aid packages being arranged with states on the continent will become conditional on accepting the expanded global gag.
