Five Critical Landmark Occurrences in the Challenge to the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
This time last year, feminist advocacy groups were preparing for a second Trump term. Few were prepared for. The flood and velocity of White House mandates emanating from the White House were viewed as a calculated strategy to paralyze through overload. In many ways it worked – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as organisations scrambled to plug the hole left by a major funding freeze. But this was only the precursor.
The American government has been the main instigator, bolstered by intense advocacy work by deeply conservative factions using the moment to forge international alliances with ideological partners.
The anti-rights movement signifies a transnational grouping of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as billionaire families and individuals that aim to roll back advances on numerous fronts. This covers access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They pursue this agenda via pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We examine five instances that shaped the welfare, autonomy, and survival of girls and women.
The Dismantling of USAID
In the month of March, shortly after a prominent humanitarian funder is frozen, causing turmoil around the world, a leading figure in the administration announces that over eighty percent of the institution's work will be scrapped. American foreign service officers, former presidents and humanitarian and health experts condemn the news, warning that people will die as a result. Activists say that the demise of the agency is greater than a budgetary issue, 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 shrinking assistance, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, data shows how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Two other major donor nations proceed with parallel slashes. A director of a global justice organization says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In March, several Christian-right organisations meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a biannual gathering held in parallel with the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. 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 applaud changes in American foreign policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the gender equality forum with a somber alert that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is resurgent, after a study indicates that anti-rights actors are systematically eroding longstanding consensus on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the summer, a cluster of meetings in Africa focused on the traditional family and national sovereignty raises concerns among equality campaigners. In the start of May, a national leader and spouse open a significant conference to resist what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A shortly thereafter, another regional summit on traditional morals is held. Both events are attended by leading American and European conservative activists, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker urges African NGOs to resist “international liberal agenda” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a major religious institution hosts a family strengthening conference in an African nation, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Activists observe that the extent of foreign involvement has expanded considerably.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are running out of contraceptives, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in midsummer plans to dispose of a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a storage facility in Belgium. A global sexual health network states that their destruction will deny millions of women and girls from family planning options, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A renowned doctors' group 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 in deadlock as the regional government will not allow the destruction of viable medicines.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the ban was reimposed 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 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 expert in child welfare says broadening the policy will have “devastating consequences”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that new US aid packages being arranged with states on the continent will become dependent on agreeing to the expanded global gag.
