Five Defining Crucial Incidents in the Erosion of the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
This time last year, groups dedicated to gender equality were bracing themselves for a new Trump administration. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The sheer number and rapid pace of White House mandates originating in the White House were viewed as a deliberate tactic to induce a state of shock. This strategy had its intended impact – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as networks struggled to address the shortfall left by a freeze on international development funds. But the situation was about to worsen.
The Trump administration has been the central catalyst, aided by intense advocacy work by far-right organisations using the moment to build worldwide connections with ideological partners.
Often termed the anti-gender movement refers to a global network of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as affluent financiers and clans that strive to weaken advances on numerous fronts. This encompasses access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They pursue this agenda via pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We look at five episodes that affected the welfare, autonomy, and survival of women and girls.
The Demise of a Major Aid Agency
In the month of March, a month and a half following a prominent humanitarian funder is its funds are blocked, causing international chaos, a senior US official confirms that nearly all of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. US diplomats, former presidents and humanitarian and health experts decry the decision, predicting that lives will be lost. Rights defenders say that the dismantling of this institution is not just a financial shortfall, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and family planning and reproductive care. Numerous groups say the impact on girls and women will be severe by shrinking assistance, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, evidence indicates how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with many more millions at risk. Two other major donor nations initiate similar reductions. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In March, several conservative religious groups meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a biannual gathering held concurrently with 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 buoyant mood as they celebrate shifts in US policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the gender equality forum with a grave caution that “the venom of male dominance” is back, after a report shows that anti-rights actors are systematically eroding historic agreements on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa centered on the traditional family and national sovereignty triggers anxiety among rights advocates. In May, a national leader and spouse open a major forum to resist what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A soon after, another Pan-African conference on traditional morals is held. Both events are graced by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker calls on African NGOs to stand up to “radical global social engineering” of global institutions. In the following month, a major religious institution hosts a family strengthening conference in West Africa, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Campaigners note that the level of external participation has expanded considerably.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are running out of contraceptives, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in July plans to destroy millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a storage facility in Belgium. A leading family planning organization states that their incineration will prevent 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 ideological decision “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” 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 reach their intended destinations, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains at a standstill as the regional government will not allow perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the policy was restored in the first month of the year. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. 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. More details on the expansion of the rule are likely forthcoming. A leader in global maternal health says extending the reach will have “unimaginable effects”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that fresh American assistance deals being arranged with states on the continent will become conditional on accepting the expanded global gag.
