Five Defining Crucial Incidents in the Assault on the Rights of Females in the Past Year.
This time last year, women’s rights organisations were preparing for a new Trump administration. Scarcely anyone expected. The torrent and swiftness of administrative decrees emanating from the White House were viewed as a calculated strategy to induce a state of shock. This strategy had its intended impact – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as organisations scrambled to address the shortfall left by a sudden aid suspension. But that was just the beginning.
The Trump administration has been the primary force, complemented by fervent lobbying efforts by religious fundamentalist networks exploiting the situation to solidify transnational relationships with sympathetic regimes.
This opposition to progressive rights signifies a transnational grouping of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that work to dismantle advances on numerous fronts. This covers pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They achieve this through lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We analyze five junctures that affected the safety, dignity and lives of girls and women.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In early spring, six weeks after a major US aid agency is frozen, causing international chaos, a senior US official reveals that a vast majority of the organization's initiatives will be axed. American foreign service officers, former presidents and aid and medical specialists condemn the news, cautioning that lives will be lost. Activists say that the demise of the agency is more than a funding crisis, it is a savage attack on human rights and birth control and maternal healthcare. A multitude of agencies say females will bear the brunt by waning support, especially in conflict areas. 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 millions more to come. Two other major donor nations follow with their own cuts. A leader of an international advocacy group says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a move to appease a political ally.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In March, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a biannual gathering held alongside the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they celebrate new Washington directives on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general 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 actively undermining historic agreements on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the summer, a cluster of meetings in Africa themed around the traditional family and national sovereignty sparks alarm among human rights defenders. In early May, a head of state and partner open a significant conference to combat what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A soon after, another regional summit on traditional morals is held. Both events are graced by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including heads of influential networks. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to push back against “radical global social engineering” of global institutions. In June, a global faith group hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in the region, an event that health activists say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Advocates remark that the level of external participation has grown significantly.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As health facilities across Africa report they are running out of contraceptives, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in midsummer plans to incinerate a vast stockpile of birth control held in a storage facility in Belgium. A major reproductive health federation states that their destruction will deny millions of women and girls from access to birth control, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. 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 renowned doctors' group calls it “callous and reckless”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains in deadlock as host nation officials are blocking the destruction of viable medicines.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reviving the global gag rule, which halts US aid to groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the rule was reinstated 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 cover diversity programmes. More details on the expansion of the rule are expected in early 2026. A leader in global maternal health says widening the scope will have “unimaginable effects”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that new US aid packages being arranged with states on the continent will become conditional on accepting the new, wider policy.
