Five Key Moments in the Rollback of the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
In the previous year, groups dedicated to gender equality were bracing themselves for a second Trump term. Hardly anyone anticipated. The torrent and swiftness of executive orders issued from the White House were seen as a intentional maneuver to paralyze through overload. In many ways it worked – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as organisations scrambled to plug the hole left by a freeze on international development funds. But this merely marked the opening act.
The American government has been the central catalyst, bolstered by fervent lobbying efforts by ultra-conservative groups capitalizing on the climate to forge international alliances with like-minded governments.
The anti-rights movement denotes an international coalition of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as affluent financiers and clans that strive to weaken forward movement on multiple topics. These include abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They do this by lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We examine five moments that influenced the security, respect, and well-being of women and girls.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In the month of March, shortly after a key American development organization is frozen, causing global disruption, a leading figure in the administration announces that a vast majority of the body's projects will be terminated. US diplomats, past leaders and aid and medical specialists decry the decision, cautioning that mortality will increase. Rights defenders say that the demise of the agency is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and birth control and maternal healthcare. A multitude of agencies say the impact on girls and women will be severe by waning support, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, reports confirm how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with millions more to come. Additional key contributing countries announce their own austerity measures. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In March, several Christian-right organisations meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a biannual gathering held alongside the annual UN Women gathering. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in high spirits as they celebrate new Washington directives on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the women’s summit with a somber alert that “the venom of male dominance” is back, after a analysis demonstrates that anti-rights actors are systematically eroding historic agreements on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa focused on the conventional household and state autonomy raises concerns among equality campaigners. In May, a head of state and partner open a large assembly to resist what they label external influences undermining local norms. A few days later, another continental gathering on family values is held. Both events are attended by leading American and European conservative activists, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to push back against “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in West Africa, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Campaigners note that the scale of their presence has increased markedly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in July plans to dispose of a vast stockpile of birth control held in a storage facility in Belgium. A leading family planning organization states that their destruction will deny millions of women and girls from contraceptive supplies, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. 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”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains at a standstill as the regional government refuse to permit perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It came as no surprise 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 expand the global gag rule to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Further specifics about the expansion of the rule are anticipated next year. A leader in global maternal health says broadening the policy will have “devastating consequences”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that fresh American assistance deals being arranged with states on the continent will become dependent on agreeing to the broadened restrictions.
