A Quintet of Key Moments in the Assault on the Rights of Females in the Year 2025.
This time last year, women’s rights organisations were anticipating a new Trump administration. Hardly anyone anticipated. The volume and speed of presidential directives issued from 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 networks struggled to fill the gap left by a freeze on international development funds. But this merely marked the opening act.
The US administration has been the key driver, complemented by vigorous campaigning by religious fundamentalist networks exploiting the situation to build worldwide connections with ideological partners.
The movement against gender equality signifies a transnational grouping of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as affluent financiers and clans that aim to roll back gains in a variety of areas. These include 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 foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We review five episodes that shaped the welfare, autonomy, and survival of females globally.
The Dismantling of USAID
In early spring, a month and a half following a prominent humanitarian funder is suspended, causing widespread distress, a senior US official announces that nearly all of the body's projects will be terminated. Career diplomats, past leaders and relief and public health authorities decry the decision, warning that lives will be lost. Rights defenders say that the dismantling of this institution is not just a financial shortfall, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and family planning and reproductive care. A multitude of agencies say females will bear the brunt by shrinking assistance, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, evidence indicates how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with millions more to come. Additional key contributing countries initiate similar reductions. A director of a global justice organization says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance 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 luxury Manhattan venue 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 buoyant mood as they celebrate shifts in US policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the women’s summit with a stark warning that “the venom of male dominance” is returning, after a analysis demonstrates that anti-rights actors are deliberately weakening established norms on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa focused on the conservative family structures and national independence sparks alarm among rights advocates. In the start of May, a president and first lady open a major forum to combat what they label external influences undermining local norms. A soon after, another regional summit on family values is held. Both events are graced by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including heads of influential networks. One speaker urges African NGOs to stand up to “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of global institutions. In June, a global faith group hosts a family strengthening conference in an African nation, an event that health activists say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Activists observe that the level of external participation has increased markedly.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are running out of contraceptives, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in July plans to destroy a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a European depot. A global sexual health network states that their incineration will prevent 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 ideological decision “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains unresolved as the regional government are blocking the destruction of viable medicines.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the rule was reinstated in the first month of the year. 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 encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. Additional information regarding the expansion of the rule are likely forthcoming. A expert in child welfare says extending the reach will have “catastrophic impacts”. Pro-choice activists fear that new US aid packages being discussed with African nations will become contingent upon adopting the expanded global gag.
