Five Major Key Moments in the Assault on the Rights of Females in the Year 2025.
A year ago, feminist advocacy groups were anticipating a new Trump administration. Hardly anyone anticipated. The volume and speed of executive orders coming out of the White House were interpreted as a calculated strategy to cause confusion and fear. The tactic proved effective – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as agencies hastened to fill the gap left by a sudden aid suspension. But that was just the beginning.
The Trump administration has been the central catalyst, bolstered by relentless activism by ultra-conservative groups capitalizing on the climate to strengthen global ties with sympathetic regimes.
The movement against gender equality refers to a global network of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as affluent financiers and clans that strive to weaken gains in a variety of areas. Areas targeted involve abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They achieve this through lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We look at five episodes that shaped the protection, honor, and existence of the female population.
USAID Dismantled
In March, shortly after a major US aid agency is suspended, causing global disruption, a senior US official confirms that a vast majority of the organization's initiatives will be axed. Career diplomats, past leaders and humanitarian and health experts criticize the move, warning that lives will be lost. Rights defenders say that the demise of the agency is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and family planning and reproductive care. A multitude of agencies say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by waning support, especially in war zones. As the year ends, reports confirm how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with millions more to come. Another pair of leading funders initiate similar reductions. A leader of an international advocacy group says a choice to reduce international development funding is a move to appease a political ally.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In the same month, several conservative religious groups meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a two-day conference held in parallel with the international conference on women's rights. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in buoyant mood as they celebrate changes in American foreign policy 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 analysis demonstrates that anti-rights actors are deliberately weakening longstanding consensus on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the summer, a series of conferences in Africa centered on the conservative family structures and national independence sparks alarm among rights advocates. In the start of May, a national leader and spouse open a large assembly to resist what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A soon after, another regional summit on conservative ethics is held. Both events are participated in by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including heads of influential networks. One speaker calls on African NGOs to resist “radical global social engineering” of international organizations. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in West Africa, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Campaigners note that the level of external participation has expanded considerably.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As health facilities across Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in July plans to incinerate a vast stockpile of birth control held in a warehouse in Europe. A leading family planning organization states that their elimination will deprive a huge female population from access to birth control, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains in deadlock as local authorities are blocking the destruction of viable medicines.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which cuts American funding for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the rule was reinstated in the first month of the year. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in October, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. Further specifics about the policy's widened application are likely forthcoming. A expert in child welfare says broadening the policy will have “devastating consequences”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being negotiated with countries in Africa will become conditional on accepting the new, wider policy.
