A Quintet of Crucial Incidents in the Erosion of the Rights of Women and Girls in 2025.
This time last year, women’s rights organisations were bracing themselves for a second Trump term. Few were prepared for. The sheer number and rapid pace of presidential directives emanating from the White House were interpreted as a deliberate tactic to overwhelm and create panic. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as agencies hastened to plug the hole left by a major funding freeze. But that was just the beginning.
The Washington leadership has been the primary force, bolstered by intense advocacy work by ultra-conservative groups exploiting the situation to forge international alliances with ideological partners.
The anti-rights movement signifies a transnational grouping of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that strive to weaken forward movement on multiple topics. Areas targeted involve pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They do this by advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We look at five episodes that shaped the security, respect, and well-being of the female population.
USAID Dismantled
In early spring, a month and a half following a prominent humanitarian funder is suspended, causing widespread distress, a senior US official reveals that a vast majority of the institution's work will be scrapped. Career diplomats, former presidents and humanitarian and health experts decry the decision, predicting that mortality will increase. Human rights advocates say that the closure of the organization is not just a financial shortfall, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and birth control and maternal healthcare. Numerous groups say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by reduced funding, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, reports confirm how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with many more millions at risk. Additional key contributing countries proceed with parallel slashes. 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 March, several Christian-right organisations meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a two-day conference held alongside the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in high spirits as they applaud changes in American foreign policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the global conference with a somber alert that “the venom of male dominance” is resurgent, after a analysis demonstrates that opponents of gender equality are deliberately weakening historic agreements on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the summer, a series of conferences in Africa centered on the traditional family and national sovereignty triggers anxiety among equality campaigners. In the start of May, a national leader and spouse open a large assembly to combat what they label external influences undermining local norms. A soon after, another regional summit on conservative ethics is held. Both events are attended by leading American and European conservative activists, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker urges African NGOs to resist “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a family strengthening conference in the region, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the level of external participation has grown significantly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in July plans to incinerate a vast stockpile of birth control held in a warehouse in Europe. A major reproductive health federation states that their destruction will deny millions of women and girls from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains in deadlock as the regional government will not allow the destruction of viable medicines.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the rule was reinstated in the first month of the year. The administration also reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. More details on the broader enforcement are likely forthcoming. A expert in child welfare says widening the scope will have “unimaginable effects”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being negotiated with countries in Africa will become dependent on agreeing to the expanded global gag.
