A Quintet of Significant Developments in the Rollback of the Rights of Women and Girls in 2025.
This time last year, women’s rights organisations were preparing for a Trump presidency sequel. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The flood and velocity of presidential directives originating in the White House were viewed as a deliberate tactic to cause confusion and fear. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as groups rushed to fill the gap left by a sudden aid suspension. But that was just the beginning.
The US administration has been the key driver, aided by relentless activism by ultra-conservative groups using the moment to forge international alliances with ideological partners.
The movement against gender equality denotes an international coalition of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that seek to undermine advances on numerous fronts. These include pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They do this by lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We review five episodes that shaped the security, respect, and well-being of girls and women.
The Dismantling of USAID
In the month of March, six weeks after a key American development organization is suspended, causing international chaos, a senior US official announces that over eighty percent of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. American foreign service officers, ex-presidents and relief and public health authorities condemn the news, predicting that lives will be lost. Activists say that the dismantling of this institution is not just a financial shortfall, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and birth control and maternal healthcare. Numerous groups say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by reduced funding, especially in war zones. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, 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 a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In March, several Christian-right organisations 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 counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they welcome new Washington directives on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the gender equality forum with a somber alert that “the poison of patriarchy” is resurgent, after a study indicates that opponents of gender equality are deliberately weakening established norms on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the warmer months, a series of conferences in Africa themed around the conventional household and state autonomy sparks alarm among human rights defenders. In May, a national leader and spouse open a significant conference to combat what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A shortly thereafter, another continental gathering on family values is held. Both events are graced by leading American and European conservative activists, including heads of influential networks. One speaker calls on African NGOs to push back against “radical global social engineering” of global institutions. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in the region, an event that health activists say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Activists observe that the extent of foreign involvement has expanded considerably.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As health facilities across Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in midsummer plans to dispose of millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a storage facility in Belgium. A major reproductive health federation states that their destruction will deny millions of women and girls from family planning options, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains at a standstill as local authorities are blocking the destruction of viable medicines.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which halts US aid to groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the ban was reimposed in the first month of the year. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Additional information regarding the broader enforcement are likely forthcoming. A director of a major health partnership says widening the scope will have “devastating consequences”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being negotiated with countries in Africa will become dependent on agreeing to the new, wider policy.
