Five Critical Pivotal Events in the Rollback of the Freedoms of Women and Girls in 2025.
Twelve months prior, groups dedicated to gender equality were steeling themselves against a return of Donald Trump to office. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The volume and speed of executive orders issued from the White House were regarded as a premeditated approach to cause confusion and fear. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as organisations scrambled to compensate for the loss left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But this merely marked the opening act.
The American government has been the central catalyst, bolstered by fervent lobbying efforts by far-right organisations using the moment to forge international alliances with like-minded governments.
The anti-rights movement refers to a global network of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that strive to weaken gains in a variety of areas. These include reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They pursue this agenda via lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We examine five moments that affected the safety, dignity and lives of the female population.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In March, six weeks after a major US aid agency is suspended, causing widespread distress, a leading figure in the administration announces that the lion's share of the institution's work will be scrapped. Career diplomats, former presidents and relief and public health authorities decry the decision, warning that people will die as a result. Rights defenders say that the demise of the agency is not just a financial shortfall, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and birth control and maternal healthcare. Numerous groups say the impact on girls and women will be severe by shrinking assistance, especially in regions of instability. 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. Additional key contributing countries 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.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In March, several conservative religious groups meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a strategic summit held alongside the international conference on women's rights. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they welcome shifts in US policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the global conference with a grave caution that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is returning, after a study indicates that anti-rights actors are systematically eroding longstanding consensus on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the warmer months, a series of conferences in Africa focused on the conservative family structures and national independence raises concerns among rights advocates. In May, a national leader and spouse open a significant conference to resist what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A shortly thereafter, another Pan-African conference on family values is held. Both events are attended by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including heads of influential networks. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to resist “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of international organizations. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in West Africa, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Campaigners note that the scale of their presence has grown significantly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
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 storage facility in Belgium. A leading family planning organization states that their elimination will deprive a huge female population from access to birth control, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “heartless and dangerous”. 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 will not allow the destruction of viable medicines.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which cuts American funding for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the policy was restored in January. 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 sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. Additional information regarding the expansion of the rule are anticipated next year. A director of a major health partnership says widening the scope will have “unimaginable effects”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that fresh American assistance deals being discussed with African nations will become conditional on accepting the new, wider policy.
