Five Crucial Incidents in the Challenge to the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Past Year.
This time last year, organisations advocating for women's rights were preparing for a Trump presidency sequel. Few were prepared for. The flood and velocity of White House mandates originating in the White House were regarded as a premeditated approach to overwhelm and create panic. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as agencies hastened to address the shortfall left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But this merely marked the opening act.
The Trump administration has been the main instigator, bolstered by relentless activism by religious fundamentalist networks using the moment to strengthen global ties with like-minded governments.
The anti-rights movement signifies a transnational grouping of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as affluent financiers and clans that aim to roll back advances on numerous fronts. Areas targeted involve pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They do this by advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to push for parity, disseminating propaganda, and supporting ideologically-matched groups.
We review five instances that affected the security, respect, and well-being of girls and women.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In early spring, six weeks after a prominent humanitarian funder is halted, causing global disruption, a leading figure in the administration announces that over eighty percent of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. Career diplomats, former presidents and relief and public health authorities decry the decision, warning that people will die as a result. Human rights advocates say that the dismantling of this institution is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Many organisations say the impact on girls and women will be severe by shrinking assistance, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, evidence indicates how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred 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 director of a global justice organization says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a move to appease a political ally.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In March, several conservative religious groups meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a biannual gathering held alongside the international conference on women's rights. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they welcome changes in American foreign policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the women’s summit with a stark warning that “the venom of male dominance” is resurgent, after a analysis demonstrates that opponents of gender equality are deliberately weakening established norms on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the summer, a series of conferences in Africa themed around the conventional household and state autonomy sparks alarm among equality campaigners. In the start of May, a national leader and spouse open a significant conference to push back on what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A shortly thereafter, another Pan-African conference on family values is held. Both events are graced by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including heads of influential networks. One speaker calls on African NGOs to push back against “international liberal agenda” of multilateral bodies. In June, a global faith group hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in an African nation, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Campaigners note that the level of external participation has increased markedly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in July plans to dispose of a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a warehouse in Europe. A leading family planning organization states that their elimination will deprive millions of women and girls from family planning options, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “callous and reckless”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains unresolved as local authorities are blocking perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reviving the global gag rule, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the rule was reinstated in January. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to broaden the scope of the policy to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Additional information regarding the broader enforcement are expected in early 2026. A leader in global maternal health says widening the scope will have “unimaginable effects”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being negotiated with countries in Africa will become conditional on accepting the expanded global gag.
