Five Major Landmark Occurrences in the Assault on the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
In the previous year, organisations advocating for women's rights were preparing for a return of Donald Trump to office. Hardly anyone anticipated. The flood and velocity of executive orders coming out of the White House were seen as a calculated strategy to overwhelm and create panic. In many ways it worked – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as organisations scrambled to fill the gap left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But this was only the precursor.
The US administration has been the primary force, bolstered by relentless activism by ultra-conservative groups using the moment to strengthen global ties with ideological partners.
Often termed the anti-gender movement describes a worldwide alliance of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as billionaire families and individuals that work to dismantle advances on numerous fronts. This covers reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They achieve this through advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We review five junctures that shaped the welfare, autonomy, and survival of girls and women.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In early spring, shortly after a prominent humanitarian funder is suspended, causing turmoil around the world, a leading figure in the administration announces that the lion's share of the body's projects will be terminated. Career diplomats, former presidents and relief and public health authorities decry the decision, predicting that mortality will increase. Human rights advocates say that the demise of the agency is not just a financial shortfall, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and birth control and maternal healthcare. Many organisations say the impact on girls and women will be severe by waning support, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, data shows 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 announce their own austerity measures. A head of a worldwide campaign network 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 March, several conservative religious groups meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a biannual gathering held concurrently with 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 welcome shifts in US policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the women’s summit with a somber alert that “the poison of patriarchy” is back, after a report shows that groups opposing progressive rights are systematically eroding established norms on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa themed around the conservative family structures and national independence triggers anxiety among rights advocates. In early May, a national leader and spouse open a large assembly to push back on what they label external influences undermining local norms. A shortly thereafter, another Pan-African conference on family values is held. Both events are attended by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker calls on African NGOs to stand up to “international liberal agenda” of international organizations. In June, a major religious institution hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in the region, an event that health activists say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Activists observe that the scale of their presence has expanded considerably.
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 midsummer plans to incinerate millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a warehouse in Europe. A major reproductive health federation states that their destruction will deny 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 international emergency medical charity calls it “heartless and dangerous”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains unresolved as local authorities are blocking perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Reviving the global gag rule, which cuts American funding for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the policy was restored 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 cover diversity programmes. Further specifics about the policy's widened application are likely forthcoming. A director of a major health partnership says widening the scope will have “devastating consequences”. Pro-choice activists fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being negotiated with countries in Africa will become dependent on agreeing to the expanded global gag.
