Five Landmark Occurrences in the Challenge to the Rights of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
This time last year, feminist advocacy groups were bracing themselves for a new Trump administration. Scarcely anyone expected. The torrent and swiftness of administrative decrees issued from the White House were seen as a premeditated approach to overwhelm and create panic. The tactic proved effective – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as organisations scrambled to address the shortfall left by a freeze on international development funds. But this was only the precursor.
The American government has been the primary force, supported by intense advocacy work by far-right organisations seizing the opportunity to forge international alliances with like-minded governments.
The anti-rights movement refers to a global network of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as billionaire families and individuals that seek to undermine progress across a wide spectrum of issues. These include abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They accomplish their goals by pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We review five moments that influenced the security, respect, and well-being of women and girls.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In early spring, shortly after a prominent humanitarian funder is frozen, causing widespread distress, a leading figure in the administration confirms that nearly all of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. US diplomats, ex-presidents and humanitarian and health experts criticize the move, cautioning that people will die as a result. Activists say that the dismantling of this institution is not just a financial shortfall, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and family planning and reproductive care. Many organisations say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by reduced funding, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, evidence indicates how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with millions more to come. Another pair of leading funders follow with their own cuts. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a choice to reduce international development funding is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In March, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a strategic summit held concurrently with the international conference on women's rights. It is an chance to exchange strategies 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 somber alert that “the poison of patriarchy” is returning, after a analysis demonstrates that anti-rights actors are deliberately weakening historic agreements on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa focused on the conservative family structures and national independence triggers anxiety among human rights defenders. In May, a national leader and spouse open a significant conference to push back on what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A shortly thereafter, another Pan-African conference on family values is held. Both events are graced by leading American and European conservative activists, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to stand up to “radical global social engineering” of global institutions. In the following month, a prominent church hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in West Africa, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Advocates remark that the extent of foreign involvement has increased markedly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As health facilities across Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including prophylaxis for assault victims, 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 millions of women and girls from family planning options, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains unresolved as local authorities refuse to permit perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which cuts American funding for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the ban was reimposed in January. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. 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. Further specifics about the expansion of the rule are anticipated next year. A expert in child welfare says broadening the policy will have “catastrophic impacts”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that new US aid packages being negotiated with countries in Africa will become dependent on agreeing to the new, wider policy.
