A Quintet of Crucial Incidents in the Attack on the Rights of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
In the previous year, feminist advocacy groups were preparing for a return of Donald Trump to office. Hardly anyone anticipated. The sheer number and rapid pace of executive orders coming out of the White House were interpreted as a premeditated approach to cause confusion and fear. This strategy had its intended impact – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as agencies hastened to compensate for the loss left by a sudden aid suspension. But this was only the precursor.
The Washington leadership has been the key driver, complemented by relentless activism by ultra-conservative groups capitalizing on the climate to solidify transnational relationships with ideological partners.
The movement against gender equality denotes an international coalition of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that strive to weaken advances on numerous fronts. These include pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They achieve this through lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to push for parity, disseminating propaganda, and supporting ideologically-matched groups.
We review five moments that influenced the protection, honor, and existence of women and girls.
The Demise of a Major Aid Agency
In early spring, a month and a half following a prominent humanitarian funder is suspended, causing turmoil around the world, a senior US official announces that nearly all of the institution's work will be scrapped. US diplomats, ex-presidents and humanitarian and health experts denounce the action, predicting that fatalities will ensue. Rights defenders say that the closure of the organization is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and family planning and reproductive care. A multitude of agencies say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by diminishing aid, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, data shows how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Another pair of leading funders initiate similar reductions. A leader of an international advocacy group says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In the same month, several Christian-right organisations meet in an high-end hotel in NYC 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 optimistic frame of mind as they applaud new Washington directives on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the women’s summit with a stark warning that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is resurgent, after a study indicates that anti-rights actors are actively undermining longstanding consensus on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa focused on the conventional household and state autonomy raises concerns among rights advocates. In early May, a president and first lady open a major forum to combat what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A soon after, another Pan-African conference on family values is held. Both events are graced by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including heads of influential networks. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to stand up to “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of global institutions. In June, a major religious institution hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in West Africa, an event that health activists say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Advocates remark that the level of external participation has expanded considerably.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As health facilities across Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in July plans to dispose of a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a storage facility in Belgium. A major reproductive health federation states that their elimination will deprive a huge female population from family planning options, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “callous and reckless”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains unresolved as the regional government are blocking perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
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 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 expand the global gag rule to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. Further specifics about the broader enforcement are anticipated next year. A leader in global maternal health says widening the scope will have “unimaginable effects”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that fresh American assistance deals being discussed with African nations will become conditional on accepting the expanded global gag.
