Five Major Landmark Occurrences in the Erosion of the Rights of Females in the Year 2025.

A year ago, feminist advocacy groups were bracing themselves for a new Trump administration. Few were prepared for. The flood and velocity of presidential directives emanating from the White House were interpreted as a deliberate tactic to paralyze through overload. This strategy had its intended impact – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as organisations scrambled to fill the gap left by a freeze on international development funds. But this merely marked the opening act.

The Washington leadership has been the central catalyst, supported by intense advocacy work by ultra-conservative groups using the moment to build worldwide connections with sympathetic regimes.

Often termed the anti-gender movement signifies a transnational grouping of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that strive to weaken gains in a variety of areas. These include access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.

They do this by pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.

We look at five episodes that affected the welfare, autonomy, and survival of girls and women.

USAID Dismantled

In March, a month and a half following a major US aid agency is frozen, causing global disruption, a leading figure in the administration announces that over eighty percent of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. American foreign service officers, former presidents and relief and public health authorities denounce the action, stating that lives will be lost. 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 family planning and reproductive care. Many organisations say females will bear the brunt by waning support, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, data shows how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Another pair of leading funders proceed with parallel slashes. A director of a global justice organization says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.

Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit

In the same month, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a biannual gathering held in parallel with the international conference on women's rights. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in high spirits as they applaud shifts in US policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the women’s summit with a stark warning that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is back, after a study indicates that groups opposing progressive rights are deliberately weakening longstanding consensus on key women’s rights issues around the world.

Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa

Over the summer, a series of conferences in Africa centered on the traditional family and national sovereignty raises concerns among human rights defenders. In the start of May, a head of state and partner open a major forum to combat what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A shortly thereafter, another regional summit on family values is held. Both events are graced by leading American and European conservative activists, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker calls on African NGOs to push back against “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a major religious institution hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in the region, an event that health activists say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Activists observe that the extent of foreign involvement has grown significantly.

American Plan to Burn Birth Control

As health facilities across Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in July plans to dispose of a vast stockpile of birth control held in a European depot. A major reproductive health federation states that their incineration will prevent a huge female population from access to birth control, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains unresolved as host nation officials refuse to permit the destruction of viable medicines.

‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded

Reviving the global gag rule, which cuts American funding for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the policy was restored in the first month of the year. The administration also reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. More details on the policy's widened application are likely forthcoming. A expert in child welfare says broadening the policy will have “devastating consequences”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that new US aid packages being negotiated with countries in Africa will become contingent upon adopting the expanded global gag.