Five Critical Significant Developments in the Erosion of the Rights of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
Twelve months prior, organisations advocating for women's rights were bracing themselves for a return of Donald Trump to office. Few were prepared for. The torrent and swiftness of White House mandates originating in the White House were seen as a calculated strategy to induce a state of shock. In many ways it worked – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as networks struggled to plug the hole left by a freeze on international development funds. But this was only the precursor.
The US administration has been the central catalyst, bolstered by relentless activism by religious fundamentalist networks capitalizing on the climate to build worldwide connections with ideological partners.
The movement against gender equality denotes an international coalition of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that seek to undermine advances on numerous fronts. This encompasses pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They achieve this through lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We examine five moments that influenced 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 halted, causing widespread distress, a leading figure in the administration reveals that over eighty percent of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. US diplomats, former presidents and relief and public health authorities condemn the news, stating that lives will be lost. Rights defenders say that the closure of the organization is not just a financial shortfall, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and birth control and maternal healthcare. A multitude of agencies say the impact on girls and women will be severe by shrinking assistance, especially in conflict areas. 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 many more millions at risk. Two other major donor nations initiate similar reductions. A leader of an international advocacy group says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In March, several conservative religious groups meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a biannual gathering held concurrently with 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 optimistic frame of mind as they celebrate shifts in US policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the women’s summit with a somber alert that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is back, after a report shows that anti-rights actors are systematically eroding historic agreements on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa centered on the traditional family and national sovereignty triggers anxiety among equality campaigners. In the start of May, a national leader and spouse open a large assembly to push back on what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A few days later, another continental gathering on traditional morals is held. Both events are attended by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker urges African NGOs to resist “international liberal agenda” of multilateral bodies. In June, 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. Advocates remark that the extent of foreign involvement has increased markedly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in July plans to incinerate millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a storage facility in Belgium. A major reproductive health federation states that their destruction will deny countless females from family planning options, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “callous and reckless”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains unresolved as the regional government are blocking perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which halts US aid to groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the policy was restored in the first month of the year. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in October, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. Additional information regarding the expansion of the rule are likely forthcoming. A expert in child welfare says extending the reach will have “devastating consequences”. Pro-choice activists fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being arranged with states on the continent will become contingent upon adopting the expanded global gag.
