Five Critical Crucial Incidents in the Challenge to the Freedoms of Women and Girls in This Past Year.
In the previous year, organisations advocating for women's rights were anticipating a new Trump administration. Hardly anyone anticipated. The sheer number and rapid pace of executive orders coming out of the White House were regarded as a intentional maneuver to overwhelm and create panic. The tactic proved effective – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as organisations scrambled to compensate for the loss left by a major funding freeze. But this merely marked the opening act.
The American government has been the key driver, supported by intense advocacy work by ultra-conservative groups using the moment to strengthen global ties with like-minded governments.
Often termed the anti-gender movement denotes an international coalition of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that strive to weaken forward movement on multiple topics. These include pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They do this by influencing policymakers, funding litigation, undermining global initiatives to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We analyze five junctures that affected the safety, dignity and lives of women and girls.
The Dismantling of USAID
In the month of March, six weeks after a key American development organization is suspended, causing widespread distress, a senior US official confirms that nearly all of the organization's initiatives will be axed. American foreign service officers, former presidents and aid and medical specialists condemn the news, predicting that mortality will increase. Activists say that the closure of the organization 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 the impact on girls and women will be severe by diminishing aid, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with many more millions at risk. Additional key contributing countries initiate similar reductions. A leader of an international advocacy group says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In the same month, several conservative religious groups 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 defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in high spirits as they applaud changes in American foreign policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the gender equality forum with a grave caution that “the venom of male dominance” is back, after a study indicates that opponents of gender equality are actively undermining longstanding consensus on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa focused on the conventional household and state autonomy triggers anxiety among human rights defenders. In May, a head of state and partner open a significant conference to combat what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A few days later, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are participated in by leading American and European conservative activists, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to resist “international liberal agenda” of global institutions. 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 a stage for criticizing gender equality. Campaigners note that the scale of their presence has grown significantly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
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 dispose of a vast stockpile of birth control held in a European depot. A leading family planning organization states that their destruction will deny millions of women and girls from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “callous and reckless”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains unresolved as host nation officials are blocking perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which halts US aid to groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the policy was restored in January. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in October, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. Additional information regarding the policy's widened application are expected in early 2026. A director of a major health partnership says widening the scope will have “devastating consequences”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being negotiated with countries in Africa will become contingent upon adopting the new, wider policy.