Five Defining Significant Developments in the Erosion of the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
A year ago, organisations advocating for women's rights were steeling themselves against a return of Donald Trump to office. Hardly anyone anticipated. The torrent and swiftness of White House mandates coming out of the White House were regarded as a calculated strategy to overwhelm and create panic. This strategy had its intended impact – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as organisations scrambled to fill the gap left by a freeze on international development funds. But this was only the precursor.
The Trump administration has been the main instigator, supported by vigorous campaigning by religious fundamentalist networks exploiting the situation to build worldwide connections with ideological partners.
Often termed the anti-gender movement describes a worldwide alliance of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that seek to undermine forward movement on multiple topics. These include reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They achieve this through lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We examine five episodes that influenced the welfare, autonomy, and survival of females globally.
USAID Dismantled
In March, six weeks after a prominent humanitarian funder is suspended, causing turmoil around the world, a top American diplomat announces that over eighty percent of the organization's initiatives will be axed. Career diplomats, ex-presidents and aid and medical specialists decry the decision, cautioning that people will die as a result. Human rights advocates say that the dismantling of this institution is not just a financial shortfall, it is a savage attack on human rights and birth control and maternal healthcare. A multitude of agencies say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by shrinking assistance, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, data shows how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with many more millions at risk. Another pair of leading funders proceed with parallel slashes. A director of a global justice organization says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In March, several Christian-right organisations meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a two-day conference held in parallel 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 welcome changes in American foreign policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the global conference with a stark warning that “the venom of male dominance” is back, after a report shows that opponents of gender equality are actively undermining historic agreements on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa focused on the conservative family structures and national independence raises concerns among rights advocates. In May, a national leader and spouse open a large assembly to combat what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A shortly thereafter, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are attended by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to stand up to “radical global social engineering” of international organizations. In the following month, a major religious institution hosts a family strengthening conference in West Africa, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Campaigners note that the extent of foreign involvement has increased markedly.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in midsummer plans to dispose of millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a European depot. A leading family planning organization states that their incineration will prevent countless females from access to birth control, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. 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 are blocking perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the policy was restored 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 broaden the scope of the policy to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Further specifics about the broader enforcement are likely forthcoming. A director of a major health partnership says broadening the policy will have “unimaginable effects”. Pro-choice activists fear that fresh American assistance deals being discussed with African nations will become conditional on accepting the expanded global gag.
