Five Critical Key Moments in the Assault on the Rights of Women and Girls in the Past Year.
A year ago, women’s rights organisations were preparing for a second Trump term. Hardly anyone anticipated. The volume and speed of administrative decrees coming out of the White House were regarded as a deliberate tactic to overwhelm and create panic. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as networks struggled to address the shortfall left by a sudden aid suspension. But this merely marked the opening act.
The US administration has been the main instigator, aided by relentless activism by far-right organisations exploiting the situation to strengthen global ties with sympathetic regimes.
The movement against gender equality refers to a global network of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as billionaire families and individuals that aim to roll back gains in a variety of areas. Areas targeted involve reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They pursue this agenda via influencing policymakers, funding litigation, undermining global initiatives to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We analyze five episodes that affected the protection, honor, and existence of girls and women.
USAID Dismantled
In the month of March, a month and a half following a key American development organization is halted, causing global disruption, a top American diplomat states that the lion's share of the organization's initiatives will be axed. Career diplomats, ex-presidents and relief and public health authorities denounce the action, cautioning that lives will be lost. Activists say that the demise of the agency is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a savage attack on human rights and access to contraception and reproductive health services. A multitude of agencies say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by shrinking assistance, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, data shows how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with millions more to come. Two other major donor nations follow with their own cuts. A leader of an international advocacy group says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In the same month, several conservative religious groups meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a biannual gathering held alongside the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they applaud shifts in US policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the gender equality forum with a somber alert that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is resurgent, after a report shows that anti-rights actors are systematically eroding longstanding consensus on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa themed around the traditional family and national sovereignty triggers anxiety among rights advocates. In May, a national leader and spouse open a major forum to resist what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A shortly thereafter, another continental gathering on family values is held. Both events are attended 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 international organizations. In the following month, a major religious institution hosts a family strengthening conference in an African nation, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Activists observe that the level of external participation 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 prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in July plans to incinerate 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 access to birth control, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains in deadlock as local authorities are blocking the destruction of viable medicines.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which cuts American funding for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the rule was reinstated in January. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in October, the US announces it intends to broaden the scope of the policy 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 leader in global maternal health says widening the scope will have “devastating consequences”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that fresh American assistance deals being arranged with states on the continent will become dependent on agreeing to the broadened restrictions.
