Five Defining Pivotal Events in the Rollback of the Freedoms of Women and Girls in 2025.
Twelve months prior, women’s rights organisations were anticipating a new Trump administration. Hardly anyone anticipated. The flood and velocity of presidential directives coming out of the White House were seen as a intentional maneuver to paralyze through overload. This strategy had its intended impact – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as groups rushed to fill the gap left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But this was only the precursor.
The US administration has been the key driver, complemented by vigorous campaigning by far-right organisations using the moment to strengthen global ties with political allies.
Often termed the anti-gender movement signifies a transnational grouping of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits 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 achieve this through influencing policymakers, funding litigation, undermining global initiatives to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We look at five episodes that affected the security, respect, and well-being of women and girls.
The Dismantling of USAID
In March, a month and a half following a key American development organization is suspended, causing turmoil around the world, a top American diplomat reveals that over eighty percent of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. American foreign service officers, former presidents and relief and public health authorities condemn the news, cautioning that fatalities will ensue. Human rights advocates say that the demise of the agency is more than a funding crisis, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Many organisations say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by waning support, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, evidence indicates how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with many more millions at risk. Additional key contributing countries initiate similar reductions. A director of a global justice organization 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 conservative religious groups meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a two-day conference held alongside the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they applaud shifts in US policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the women’s summit with a somber alert that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is returning, after a study indicates that anti-rights actors are deliberately weakening historic agreements on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the summer, a cluster of meetings in Africa centered on the conservative family structures and national independence raises concerns among human rights defenders. In the start of May, a head of state and partner open a significant conference to combat what they label external influences undermining local norms. A soon after, another continental gathering on conservative ethics is held. Both events are graced by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to stand up to “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of international organizations. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in the region, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Campaigners note that the level of external participation has grown significantly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in July plans to destroy a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a warehouse in Europe. A global sexual health network states that their destruction will deny countless females 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 deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains at a standstill as host nation officials will not allow the destruction of viable medicines.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which cuts American funding for 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 January. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in October, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include sovereign states and UN agencies 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 broadening the policy will have “devastating consequences”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that new US aid packages being arranged with states on the continent will become conditional on accepting the new, wider policy.
