Five Critical Significant Developments in the Assault on the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
This time last year, women’s rights organisations were steeling themselves against a new Trump administration. Hardly anyone anticipated. The torrent and swiftness of executive orders coming out of the White House were regarded as a calculated strategy to paralyze through overload. In many ways it worked – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as groups rushed to plug the hole left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But this was only the precursor.
The Washington leadership has been the primary force, supported by fervent lobbying efforts by religious fundamentalist networks exploiting the situation to solidify transnational relationships with ideological partners.
This opposition to progressive rights signifies a transnational grouping of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as billionaire families and individuals that work to dismantle gains in a variety of areas. These include access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They do this by pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to push for parity, disseminating propaganda, and supporting ideologically-matched groups.
We examine five instances that affected the safety, dignity and lives of the female population.
The Demise of a Major Aid Agency
In March, a month and a half following a major US aid agency is halted, causing international chaos, a leading figure in the administration states that a vast majority of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. American foreign service officers, ex-presidents and aid and medical specialists criticize the move, predicting that mortality will increase. Human rights advocates say that the closure of the organization is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a savage attack on human rights and birth control and maternal healthcare. Numerous groups say females will bear the brunt by reduced funding, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with millions more to come. Two other major donor nations follow with their own cuts. A leader of an international advocacy group says a choice to reduce international development funding is a move to appease a political ally.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In March, several Christian-right organisations meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a biannual gathering held alongside the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in buoyant mood as they celebrate new Washington directives on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the global conference with a somber alert that “the poison of patriarchy” is returning, after a study indicates that opponents of gender equality are systematically eroding established norms on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the summer, a cluster of meetings in Africa centered on the conservative family structures and national independence raises concerns among equality campaigners. In the start of May, a national leader and spouse open a large assembly to resist what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A shortly thereafter, another Pan-African conference on traditional morals is held. Both events are participated in by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including heads of influential networks. One speaker urges African NGOs to push back against “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of global institutions. In the following month, a major religious institution hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in an African nation, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Activists observe that the level of external participation has expanded considerably.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
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 July plans to destroy a vast stockpile of birth control held in a storage facility in Belgium. A leading family planning organization states that their incineration will prevent a huge female population from access to birth control, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” 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 fulfill their original purpose, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains unresolved as local authorities refuse to permit the destruction of viable medicines.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It was widely expected 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 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. Additional information regarding the broader enforcement are anticipated next year. A expert in child welfare says broadening the policy will have “devastating consequences”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that fresh American assistance deals being discussed with African nations will become dependent on agreeing to the expanded global gag.
