Five Critical Key Moments in the Rollback of the Rights of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
In the previous year, organisations advocating for women's rights were preparing for a return of Donald Trump to office. Scarcely anyone expected. The sheer number and rapid pace of administrative decrees coming out of the White House were regarded as a intentional maneuver to paralyze through overload. The tactic proved effective – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as groups rushed to address the shortfall left by a sudden aid suspension. But this merely marked the opening act.
The American government has been the primary force, supported by intense advocacy work by deeply conservative factions using the moment to strengthen global ties with political allies.
The movement against gender equality refers to a global network of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that work to dismantle forward movement on multiple topics. This covers 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 foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We review five episodes that impacted the welfare, autonomy, and survival of girls and women.
USAID Dismantled
In early spring, a month and a half following a key American development organization is suspended, causing turmoil around the world, a leading figure in the administration announces that a vast majority of the institution's work will be scrapped. Career diplomats, ex-presidents and humanitarian and health experts denounce the action, cautioning that lives will be lost. Human rights advocates say that the demise of the agency is not just a financial shortfall, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and birth control and maternal healthcare. Many organisations say the impact on girls and women will be severe by waning support, especially in war zones. As the year ends, statistics reveal how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Two other major donor nations proceed with parallel slashes. A leader of an international advocacy group says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is a move to appease a political ally.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In the same month, several Christian-right organisations meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a two-day conference held alongside the international conference on women's rights. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in buoyant mood as they celebrate changes in American foreign policy on gender, diversity and abortion. 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 analysis demonstrates that anti-rights actors are systematically eroding longstanding consensus on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the summer, a cluster of meetings in Africa focused on the traditional family and national sovereignty raises concerns among rights advocates. In early May, a president and first lady open a significant conference to resist what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A soon after, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are participated in by leading American and European conservative activists, including heads of influential networks. One speaker urges African NGOs to stand up to “international liberal agenda” of global institutions. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in an African nation, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Advocates remark that the level of external participation has increased markedly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As health facilities across Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in midsummer plans to destroy 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 access to birth control, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains unresolved as local authorities refuse to permit the destruction of viable medicines.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Reviving the global gag rule, which halts US aid to groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the policy was restored in January. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. More details on the expansion of the rule are likely forthcoming. A leader in global maternal health 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 conditional on accepting the expanded global gag.
