Five Defining Key Moments in the Rollback of the Rights of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.
This time last year, groups dedicated to gender equality were bracing themselves for a return of Donald Trump to office. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The sheer number and rapid pace of executive orders emanating from the White House were interpreted as a calculated strategy to cause confusion and fear. This strategy had its intended impact – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as agencies hastened to fill the gap left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But this was only the precursor.
The US administration has been the key driver, aided by intense advocacy work by deeply conservative factions exploiting the situation to solidify transnational relationships with ideological partners.
Often termed the anti-gender movement signifies a transnational grouping of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that work to dismantle gains in a variety of areas. This covers pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They accomplish their goals by pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We review five episodes that influenced the security, respect, and well-being of girls and women.
USAID Dismantled
In early spring, a month and a half following a prominent humanitarian funder is its funds are blocked, causing international chaos, a top American diplomat states that nearly all of the organization's initiatives will be axed. Career diplomats, past leaders and relief and public health authorities condemn the news, predicting that lives will be lost. Human rights advocates say that the closure of the organization is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and access to contraception and reproductive health services. A multitude of agencies say the impact on girls and women will be severe by diminishing aid, especially in war zones. 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 many more millions at risk. Another pair of leading funders follow with their own cuts. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a choice to reduce international development funding is a move to appease a political ally.
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 two-day conference held concurrently with 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 buoyant mood as they applaud new Washington directives on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the gender equality forum with a stark warning that “the venom of male dominance” is resurgent, after a report shows that groups opposing progressive rights are deliberately weakening historic agreements on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the summer, a cluster of meetings in Africa focused on the traditional family and national sovereignty sparks alarm among human rights defenders. In the start of 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 conservative ethics is held. Both events are graced by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker calls on African NGOs to stand up to “radical global social engineering” of multilateral bodies. In June, a global faith group hosts a family strengthening conference in the region, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Campaigners note that the level of external participation has increased markedly.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in midsummer plans to incinerate a vast stockpile of birth control held in a European depot. A major reproductive health federation states that their elimination will deprive countless females from contraceptive supplies, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “callous and reckless”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains in deadlock as local authorities will not allow perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the ban was reimposed in January. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. More details on the expansion of the rule are likely forthcoming. A expert in child welfare says extending the reach will have “catastrophic impacts”. Pro-choice activists fear that new US aid packages being negotiated with countries in Africa will become conditional on accepting the new, wider policy.
