Five Major Landmark Occurrences in the Challenge to the Rights 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. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The sheer number and rapid pace of White House mandates emanating from the White House were interpreted as a premeditated approach to overwhelm and create panic. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as agencies hastened to compensate for the loss left by a freeze on international development funds. But this merely marked the opening act.
The US administration has been the primary force, bolstered by fervent lobbying efforts by religious fundamentalist networks using the moment 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 billionaire families and individuals that seek to undermine progress across a wide spectrum of issues. This covers pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They achieve this through advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We analyze five junctures that affected the protection, honor, and existence of girls and women.
The Dismantling of USAID
In March, six weeks after a key American development organization is frozen, causing international chaos, a leading figure in the administration reveals that a vast majority of the institution's work will be scrapped. US diplomats, ex-presidents and relief and public health authorities criticize the move, predicting that people will die as a result. Activists say that the closure of the organization is more than a funding crisis, it is a savage attack on human rights and birth control and maternal healthcare. Many organisations say the impact on girls and women will be severe by diminishing aid, especially in war zones. As the year ends, data shows 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. 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.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In the same month, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a two-day conference held in parallel with the international conference on women's rights. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in high spirits as they celebrate shifts in US policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the global conference with a grave caution that “the venom of male dominance” is back, after a analysis demonstrates that anti-rights actors are actively undermining longstanding consensus on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the summer, a cluster of meetings in Africa focused on the traditional family and national sovereignty triggers anxiety among rights advocates. In the start of May, a head of state and partner open a large assembly to combat what they label external influences undermining local norms. A soon after, another continental gathering on family values is held. Both events are attended by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including heads of influential networks. One speaker urges African NGOs to push back against “international liberal agenda” of international organizations. In June, a major religious institution hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in the region, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the level of external participation has grown significantly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
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 incinerate a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a warehouse in Europe. A major reproductive health federation states that their incineration will prevent a huge female population from family planning options, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains unresolved as the regional government refuse to permit the destruction of viable medicines.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which halts US aid to groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the rule was reinstated in January. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. More details on the broader enforcement are anticipated next year. A expert in child welfare says extending the reach will have “catastrophic impacts”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being discussed with African nations will become conditional on accepting the broadened restrictions.
