Five Critical Pivotal Events in the Assault on the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Past Year.
A year ago, women’s rights organisations were preparing for a return of Donald Trump to office. Hardly anyone anticipated. The flood and velocity of administrative decrees issued from the White House were viewed as a calculated strategy to cause confusion and fear. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as networks struggled to plug the hole left by a sudden aid suspension. But this was only the precursor.
The Trump administration has been the primary force, supported by vigorous campaigning by ultra-conservative groups seizing the opportunity to build worldwide connections with like-minded governments.
The movement against gender equality describes a worldwide alliance of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that seek to undermine forward movement on multiple topics. These include access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They accomplish their goals by pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We analyze five junctures that shaped the security, respect, and well-being of females globally.
The Dismantling of USAID
In March, shortly after a major US aid agency is its funds are blocked, causing international chaos, a senior US official announces that a vast majority of the organization's initiatives will be axed. American foreign service officers, former presidents and aid and medical specialists decry the decision, predicting that fatalities will ensue. Rights defenders say that the dismantling of this institution is more than a funding crisis, it is a savage attack on human rights and access to contraception and reproductive health services. A multitude of agencies say females will bear the brunt by reduced funding, especially in war zones. As the year ends, evidence indicates 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. Another pair of leading funders initiate similar reductions. A leader of an international advocacy group says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In the same month, several Christian-right organisations meet in an upmarket New York hotel 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 new Washington directives on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the women’s summit with a stark warning that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is resurgent, after a study indicates that groups opposing progressive rights are actively undermining established norms on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa centered on the conventional household and state autonomy sparks alarm among equality campaigners. In the start of May, a head of state and partner open a large assembly to combat what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A soon after, another Pan-African conference on traditional morals is held. Both events are attended by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker urges African NGOs to push back against “international liberal agenda” of global institutions. In June, a major religious institution hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in an African nation, an event that health activists say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Campaigners note that the scale of their presence has increased markedly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in midsummer plans to dispose of a vast stockpile of birth control held in a storage facility in Belgium. A major reproductive health federation states that their incineration will prevent millions of women and girls from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains in deadlock as host nation officials will not allow perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reviving the global gag rule, which cuts American funding for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the ban was reimposed in January. The administration also reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in October, the US announces it intends to broaden the scope of the policy to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Further specifics about the policy's widened application are expected in early 2026. A leader in global maternal health says broadening the policy will have “unimaginable effects”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that fresh American assistance deals being arranged with states on the continent will become contingent upon adopting the new, wider policy.
