Five Critical Landmark Occurrences in the Erosion of the Rights of Females in the Year 2025.
In the previous year, organisations advocating for women's rights were bracing themselves for a second Trump term. Scarcely anyone expected. The sheer number and rapid pace of administrative decrees issued from the White House were regarded as a calculated strategy to overwhelm and create panic. This strategy had its intended impact – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as networks struggled to compensate for the loss left by a major funding freeze. But this was only the precursor.
The Trump administration has been the main instigator, supported by fervent lobbying efforts by ultra-conservative groups seizing the opportunity to forge international alliances with sympathetic regimes.
Often termed the anti-gender movement denotes an international coalition of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as billionaire families and individuals that seek to undermine advances on numerous fronts. This covers abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They do this by advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to push for parity, disseminating propaganda, and supporting ideologically-matched groups.
We review five instances that affected the welfare, autonomy, and survival of the female population.
The Dismantling of USAID
In early spring, a month and a half following a key American development organization is its funds are blocked, causing turmoil around the world, a senior US official reveals that nearly all of the institution's work will be scrapped. US diplomats, ex-presidents and humanitarian and health experts criticize the move, cautioning that lives will be lost. Human rights advocates say that the closure of the organization is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and access to contraception and reproductive health services. A multitude of agencies say females will bear the brunt by diminishing aid, especially in war zones. As the year ends, evidence indicates 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. Another pair of leading funders follow with their own cuts. A director of a global justice organization says a choice to reduce international development funding is a move to appease a political ally.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In the same month, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a two-day conference held in parallel with the annual UN Women gathering. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in high spirits as they welcome changes in American foreign policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the gender equality forum with a grave caution that “the venom of male dominance” is resurgent, after a report shows that groups opposing progressive rights are deliberately weakening longstanding consensus on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa focused on the traditional family and national sovereignty triggers anxiety among human rights defenders. In the start of May, a head of state and partner open a major forum to push back on what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A shortly thereafter, another regional summit on conservative ethics is held. Both events are participated in by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker urges African NGOs to stand up to “international liberal agenda” of multilateral bodies. In June, a prominent church hosts a family strengthening conference in an African nation, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Advocates remark that the extent of foreign involvement has increased markedly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As health facilities across Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, 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 global sexual health network states that their elimination will deprive millions of women and girls from access to birth control, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “callous and reckless”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains at a standstill as local authorities will not allow the destruction of viable medicines.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Reviving the global gag rule, which halts US aid to groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the policy was restored in the first month of the year. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. Additional information regarding the expansion of the rule are likely forthcoming. A director of a major health partnership says widening the scope will have “unimaginable effects”. Pro-choice activists fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being arranged with states on the continent will become dependent on agreeing to the new, wider policy.
