Five Crucial Incidents in the Challenge to the Rights of Women and Girls in This Past Year.
A year ago, women’s rights organisations were preparing for a second Trump term. Hardly anyone anticipated. The flood and velocity of executive orders emanating from the White House were viewed as a calculated strategy to induce a state of shock. In many ways it worked – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as groups rushed to plug the hole left by a sudden aid suspension. But the situation was about to worsen.
The US administration has been the main instigator, complemented by vigorous campaigning by ultra-conservative groups capitalizing on the climate to solidify transnational relationships with sympathetic regimes.
The movement against gender equality signifies a transnational grouping of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as billionaire families and individuals that work to dismantle progress across a wide spectrum of issues. Areas targeted involve 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 foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We look at five episodes that affected the safety, dignity and lives of the female population.
The Demise of a Major Aid Agency
In March, shortly after a major US aid agency is halted, causing international chaos, a top American diplomat confirms that the lion's share of the organization's initiatives will be axed. American foreign service officers, past leaders and relief and public health authorities decry the decision, cautioning that fatalities will ensue. Human rights advocates say that the dismantling of this institution is not just a financial shortfall, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms 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, statistics reveal how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Another pair of leading funders announce their own austerity measures. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a move to cut foreign aid drastically 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 high-end hotel in NYC for a two-day conference held concurrently with the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in buoyant mood as they celebrate changes in American foreign policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the gender equality forum with a stark warning that “the venom of male dominance” is back, after a analysis demonstrates that groups opposing progressive rights are actively undermining longstanding consensus on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the warmer months, a series of conferences in Africa themed around the conventional household and state autonomy triggers anxiety among equality campaigners. In May, a national leader and spouse open a significant conference to resist what they label external influences undermining local norms. A shortly thereafter, another regional summit on conservative ethics is held. Both events are graced by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker calls on African NGOs to resist “international liberal agenda” of global institutions. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in an African nation, an event that health activists say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the extent of foreign involvement has grown significantly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
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 a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a storage facility in Belgium. A major reproductive health federation states that their incineration will prevent 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 politically-motivated move “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A international emergency medical charity 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 local authorities refuse to permit perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
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 was anticipated when the rule was reinstated in January. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in October, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. More details on the expansion of the rule are expected in early 2026. A director of a major health partnership says extending the reach will have “devastating consequences”. Pro-choice activists fear that new US aid packages being discussed with African nations will become dependent on agreeing to the broadened restrictions.
