A Quintet of Significant Developments in the Assault on the Freedoms of Women and Girls in 2025.
This time last year, organisations advocating for women's rights were anticipating a second Trump term. Hardly anyone anticipated. The volume and speed of White House mandates coming out of the White House were interpreted as a calculated strategy to overwhelm and create panic. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as groups rushed to compensate for the loss left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But this was only the precursor.
The Washington leadership has been the primary force, bolstered by intense advocacy work by religious fundamentalist networks exploiting the situation to solidify transnational relationships with sympathetic regimes.
This opposition to progressive rights refers to a global network 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. This encompasses reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They pursue this agenda via pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We review five junctures that affected the protection, honor, and existence of women and girls.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In March, a month and a half following a major US aid agency is frozen, causing widespread distress, a leading figure in the administration reveals that the lion's share of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. American foreign service officers, former presidents and humanitarian and health experts criticize the move, cautioning that people will die as a result. Rights defenders say that the demise of the agency is more than a funding crisis, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and family planning and reproductive care. A multitude of agencies say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by waning support, 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 many more millions at risk. Additional key contributing countries announce their own austerity measures. 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 the same month, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a two-day conference held concurrently with the international conference on women's rights. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in buoyant mood as they welcome shifts in US policy 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 back, after a report shows that groups opposing progressive rights are actively undermining historic agreements on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the summer, a series of conferences in Africa focused on the conservative family structures and national independence triggers anxiety among equality campaigners. In the start of May, a head of state and partner open a large assembly to push back on what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A soon after, another continental gathering on family values is held. Both events are participated in by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker calls on African NGOs to push back against “radical global social engineering” of international organizations. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in an African nation, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Advocates remark that the level of external participation has grown significantly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in midsummer plans to incinerate millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a European depot. A leading family planning organization states that their elimination will deprive a huge female population from access to birth control, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “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”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains at a standstill as the regional government are blocking the destruction of viable medicines.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reviving the global gag rule, which halts US aid to groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is standard practice for 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 October, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. More details on the policy's widened application are likely forthcoming. A director of a major health partnership says widening the scope will have “catastrophic impacts”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that fresh American assistance deals being arranged with states on the continent will become contingent upon adopting the expanded global gag.
