Five Defining Landmark Occurrences in the Assault on the Rights of Women and Girls in 2025.
This time last year, groups dedicated to gender equality were bracing themselves for a new Trump administration. Few were prepared for. The volume and speed of administrative decrees emanating from the White House were regarded as a calculated strategy to paralyze through overload. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as networks struggled to compensate for the loss left by a major funding freeze. But this merely marked the opening act.
The US administration has been the main instigator, supported by vigorous campaigning by religious fundamentalist networks exploiting the situation to forge international alliances with ideological partners.
The movement against gender equality describes a worldwide alliance of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as affluent financiers and clans that seek to undermine gains in a variety of areas. These include pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They accomplish their goals by lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We look at five episodes that affected the security, respect, and well-being of females globally.
The Dismantling of USAID
In the month of March, shortly after a major US aid agency is its funds are blocked, causing global disruption, a top American diplomat states that nearly all of the institution's work will be scrapped. US diplomats, ex-presidents and aid and medical specialists criticize the move, predicting that lives will be lost. Activists say that the dismantling of this institution is not just a financial shortfall, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and family planning and reproductive care. Numerous groups say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by diminishing aid, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, data shows how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with millions more to come. Additional key contributing countries initiate similar reductions. A director of a global justice organization says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In the same month, several Christian-right organisations meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a strategic summit held in parallel with the annual UN Women gathering. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in high spirits as they welcome shifts in US policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the gender equality forum with a grave caution that “the venom of male dominance” is back, after a study indicates that groups opposing progressive rights 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 sparks alarm among rights advocates. In May, a president and first lady open a major forum to resist what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A soon after, another regional summit on traditional morals is held. Both events are participated in by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including heads of influential networks. One speaker calls on African NGOs to push back against “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of global institutions. In June, a major religious institution hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in West Africa, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Advocates remark that the scale of their presence has expanded considerably.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are facing shortages of birth control, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in July plans to dispose of a vast stockpile of birth control held in a warehouse in Europe. A leading family planning organization states that their incineration will prevent a huge female population from contraceptive supplies, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “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”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains at a standstill as the regional government refuse to permit the destruction of viable medicines.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reviving the global gag rule, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the ban was reimposed in the first month of the year. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. Additional information regarding the broader enforcement are likely forthcoming. A expert in child welfare says widening the scope will have “devastating consequences”. Pro-choice activists fear that fresh American assistance deals being negotiated with countries in Africa will become dependent on agreeing to the expanded global gag.
