Five Defining Pivotal Events in the Attack on the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
A year ago, women’s rights organisations were anticipating a Trump presidency sequel. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The flood and velocity of executive orders issued from the White House were interpreted as a premeditated approach to paralyze through overload. This strategy had its intended impact – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as groups rushed to compensate for the loss left by a major funding freeze. But the situation was about to worsen.
The American government has been the key driver, bolstered by intense advocacy work by religious fundamentalist networks seizing the opportunity to solidify transnational relationships with political allies.
This opposition to progressive rights refers to a global network of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as affluent financiers and clans that work to dismantle progress across a wide spectrum of issues. This encompasses reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They do this by influencing policymakers, funding litigation, undermining global initiatives to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We review five moments that impacted the welfare, autonomy, and survival of girls and women.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In early spring, six weeks after a key American development organization is frozen, causing global disruption, a leading figure in the administration reveals that nearly all of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. Career diplomats, ex-presidents and aid and medical specialists denounce the action, cautioning that fatalities will ensue. Activists say that the closure of the organization is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a savage attack on human rights and birth control and maternal healthcare. A multitude of agencies say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by diminishing aid, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, reports confirm 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. Another pair of leading funders announce their own austerity measures. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a choice to reduce international development funding is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In March, several Christian-right organisations meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a two-day conference held in parallel with the annual UN Women gathering. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they applaud new Washington directives on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the global conference with a grave caution that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is resurgent, after a analysis demonstrates that groups opposing progressive rights are actively undermining established norms on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa themed around the conventional household and state autonomy sparks alarm among human rights defenders. In early May, a national leader and spouse open a major forum to combat what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A shortly thereafter, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are graced by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to stand up to “international liberal agenda” of global institutions. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a family strengthening conference in the region, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Activists observe that the scale of their presence has expanded considerably.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are running out of contraceptives, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in midsummer plans to destroy millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a European depot. A major reproductive health federation states that their elimination will deprive millions of women and girls from contraceptive supplies, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains in deadlock as local authorities refuse to permit usable products to be destroyed.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which halts US aid to groups that provide, advocate for or advise on 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 rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in October, the US announces it intends to broaden the scope of the policy to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. More details on the expansion of the rule 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 conditional on accepting the expanded global gag.
