A Quintet of Key Moments in the Attack on the Rights of Females in the Year 2025.
In the previous year, feminist advocacy groups were bracing themselves for a Trump presidency sequel. Hardly anyone anticipated. The flood and velocity of executive orders emanating from the White House were seen as a deliberate tactic to induce a state of shock. The tactic proved effective – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as groups rushed to fill the gap left by a freeze on international development funds. But this merely marked the opening act.
The US administration has been the key driver, complemented by relentless activism by religious fundamentalist networks exploiting the situation to forge international alliances with political allies.
The anti-rights movement signifies a transnational grouping of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that strive to weaken gains in a variety of areas. This encompasses reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They pursue this agenda via advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to push for parity, disseminating propaganda, and supporting ideologically-matched groups.
We examine five instances that influenced the safety, dignity and lives of women and girls.
The Demise of a Major Aid Agency
In early spring, a month and a half following a key American development organization is suspended, causing widespread distress, a senior US official confirms that nearly all of the institution's work will be scrapped. Career diplomats, ex-presidents and humanitarian and health experts criticize the move, cautioning that mortality will increase. Human rights advocates say that the dismantling of this institution is not just a financial shortfall, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties 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 regions of instability. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with many more millions at risk. Another pair of leading funders announce their own austerity measures. A leader of an international advocacy group 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 faith-based advocacy networks meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a two-day conference held alongside the international conference on women's rights. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in high spirits as they applaud shifts in US policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the global conference with a stark warning that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is returning, after a report shows that groups opposing progressive rights are deliberately weakening historic agreements on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the summer, a cluster of meetings in Africa centered on the traditional family and national sovereignty sparks alarm among human rights defenders. In 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 Pan-African conference on family values is held. Both events are attended by leading American and European conservative activists, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker calls on African NGOs to resist “international liberal agenda” of multilateral bodies. In June, a global faith group hosts a family strengthening conference in the region, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Activists observe that the extent of foreign involvement has expanded considerably.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are running out of contraceptives, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in July plans to incinerate millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a European depot. A major reproductive health federation states that their destruction will deny millions of women and girls from access to birth control, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains in deadlock as host nation officials refuse to permit perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
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 anticipated when the rule was reinstated 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 national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. Further specifics about the policy's widened application are likely forthcoming. A expert in child welfare says widening the scope will have “catastrophic impacts”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that new US aid packages being arranged with states on the continent will become conditional on accepting the expanded global gag.
