Five Pivotal Events in the Assault on the Rights of Females in 2025.
A year ago, groups dedicated to gender equality were bracing themselves for a second Trump term. Few were prepared for. The volume and speed of executive orders emanating from the White House were viewed as a calculated strategy to induce a state of shock. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as groups rushed to address the shortfall left by a freeze on international development funds. But that was just the beginning.
The US administration has been the key driver, bolstered by fervent lobbying efforts by religious fundamentalist networks exploiting the situation to forge international alliances with ideological partners.
This opposition to progressive rights signifies a transnational grouping of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as affluent financiers and clans that seek to undermine progress across a wide spectrum of issues. This encompasses abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They pursue this agenda via advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to push for parity, disseminating propaganda, and supporting ideologically-matched groups.
We review five moments that shaped the welfare, autonomy, and survival of the female population.
USAID Dismantled
In March, a month and a half following a major US aid agency is its funds are blocked, causing turmoil around the world, a senior US official states that the lion's share of the body's projects will be terminated. US diplomats, past leaders and humanitarian and health experts criticize the move, predicting that fatalities will ensue. Human rights advocates say that the closure of the organization is greater than a budgetary issue, 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 reduced funding, especially in war zones. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with millions more to come. Additional key contributing countries announce their own austerity measures. A director of a global justice organization says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is a move to appease a political ally.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In the same month, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a biannual gathering held concurrently with the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in high spirits as they welcome changes in American foreign policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the women’s summit with a somber alert that “the poison of patriarchy” is resurgent, after a report shows that anti-rights actors are deliberately weakening historic agreements on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa focused on the conservative family structures and national independence triggers anxiety among rights advocates. In the start of May, a president and first lady open a major forum to combat what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A soon after, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are attended by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker urges African NGOs to stand up to “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of global institutions. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in an African nation, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Activists observe that the level of external participation has grown significantly.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As health facilities across Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in midsummer plans to incinerate a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a warehouse in Europe. A major reproductive health federation states that their destruction will deny countless females from access to birth control, 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 “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A renowned doctors' group 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 at a standstill as the regional government 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 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 October, the US announces it intends to broaden the scope of the policy to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. More details on the broader enforcement are likely forthcoming. A leader in global maternal health says broadening the policy will have “devastating consequences”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being arranged with states on the continent will become conditional on accepting the broadened restrictions.
