Five Defining Significant Developments in the Attack on the Rights of Females in the Year 2025.
A year ago, feminist advocacy groups were preparing for a Trump presidency sequel. Hardly anyone anticipated. The torrent and swiftness of White House mandates emanating from the White House were interpreted as a calculated strategy to induce a state of shock. In many ways it worked – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as organisations scrambled to compensate for the loss left by a major funding freeze. But this was only the precursor.
The Washington leadership has been the primary force, bolstered by fervent lobbying efforts by deeply conservative factions using the moment to strengthen global ties with sympathetic regimes.
Often termed the anti-gender movement denotes an international coalition of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that seek to undermine advances on numerous fronts. These include access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They achieve this through advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We look at five instances that shaped the welfare, autonomy, and survival of girls and women.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In March, a month and a half following a key American development organization is suspended, causing widespread distress, a senior US official announces that a vast majority of the institution's work will be scrapped. Career diplomats, former presidents and relief and public health authorities condemn the news, warning that people will die as a result. Activists say that the dismantling of this institution is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a savage attack on human rights and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Numerous groups say females will bear the brunt by diminishing aid, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, reports confirm how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with millions more to come. Another pair of leading funders announce their own austerity measures. A director of a global justice organization says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In March, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a biannual gathering held alongside the annual UN Women gathering. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in buoyant mood as they celebrate shifts in US policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the global conference with a stark warning that “the venom of male dominance” is returning, after a study indicates that groups opposing progressive rights are deliberately weakening longstanding consensus on key women’s rights issues around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the warmer months, a series of conferences in Africa centered on the conservative family structures and national independence triggers anxiety among rights advocates. In May, a head of state and partner open a significant conference to push back on what they label external influences undermining local norms. A soon after, another continental gathering on traditional morals is held. Both events are attended by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including heads of influential networks. One speaker calls on African NGOs to stand up to “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of international organizations. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in West Africa, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the extent of foreign involvement has increased markedly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As health facilities across Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in midsummer plans to destroy a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a warehouse in Europe. A global sexual health network states that their elimination will deprive countless females from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “callous and reckless”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains unresolved as host nation officials are blocking perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which cuts American funding for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the ban was reimposed in January. 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 include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Further specifics about the policy's widened application are likely forthcoming. A leader in global maternal health says broadening the policy will have “catastrophic impacts”. Pro-choice activists fear that fresh American assistance deals being discussed with African nations will become conditional on accepting the expanded global gag.
