Five Critical Key Moments in the Assault on the Rights of Females in the Year 2025.
This time last year, feminist advocacy groups were preparing for a new Trump administration. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The flood and velocity of administrative decrees issued from the White House were regarded as a calculated strategy to induce a state of shock. This strategy had its intended impact – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as groups rushed to compensate for the loss left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But that was just the beginning.
The US administration has been the main instigator, bolstered by vigorous campaigning by ultra-conservative groups seizing the opportunity to solidify transnational relationships with political allies.
The movement against gender equality denotes an international coalition of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that seek to undermine advances on numerous fronts. This encompasses pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They accomplish their goals by lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We examine five junctures that affected the welfare, autonomy, and survival of women and girls.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In March, a month and a half following a prominent humanitarian funder is suspended, causing international chaos, a top American diplomat states that the lion's share of the institution's work will be scrapped. Career diplomats, past leaders and humanitarian and health experts decry the decision, predicting that lives will be lost. Rights defenders say that the dismantling of this institution is more than a funding crisis, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Many organisations say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by shrinking assistance, especially in conflict areas. 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 a far greater catastrophe looming. Additional key contributing countries follow with their own cuts. A leader of an international advocacy group says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a move to appease a political ally.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In March, several Christian-right organisations meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a strategic summit held in parallel with the annual UN Women gathering. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in buoyant mood as they applaud shifts in US policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the gender equality forum with a somber alert that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is back, after a analysis demonstrates that groups opposing progressive rights are actively undermining 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 themed around the conservative family structures and national independence triggers anxiety among human rights defenders. In the start of May, a national leader and spouse open a significant conference to combat what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A soon after, another continental gathering on conservative ethics is held. Both events are participated in by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to resist “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of global institutions. In June, a major religious institution hosts a family strengthening conference in the region, an event that health activists say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Campaigners note that the extent of foreign involvement has increased markedly.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in July plans to dispose of a vast stockpile of birth control held in a European depot. A leading family planning organization states that their elimination will deprive millions of women and girls from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “callous and reckless”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains unresolved as host nation officials will not allow perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which halts US aid to groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the ban was reimposed in January. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in October, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. More details on the expansion of the rule are likely forthcoming. A leader in global maternal health says widening the scope will have “unimaginable effects”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that fresh American assistance deals being negotiated with countries in Africa will become dependent on agreeing to the new, wider policy.
