Five Major Landmark Occurrences in the Assault on the Rights of Females in the Past Year.
Twelve months prior, women’s rights organisations were preparing for a second Trump term. Hardly anyone anticipated. The torrent and swiftness of White House mandates emanating from the White House were regarded as a premeditated approach to cause confusion and fear. In many ways it worked – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as organisations scrambled to plug the hole left by a freeze on international development funds. But this was only the precursor.
The Trump administration has been the key driver, bolstered by intense advocacy work by ultra-conservative groups capitalizing on the climate to build worldwide connections with sympathetic regimes.
Often termed the anti-gender movement signifies a transnational grouping of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as affluent financiers and clans that work to dismantle advances on numerous fronts. Areas targeted involve reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They do this by pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We analyze five episodes that shaped the security, respect, and well-being of women and girls.
The Demise of a Major Aid Agency
In early spring, shortly after a prominent humanitarian funder is its funds are blocked, causing turmoil around the world, a senior US official states that nearly all of the body's projects will be terminated. Career diplomats, past leaders and humanitarian and health experts decry the decision, predicting that mortality will increase. Human rights advocates say that the dismantling of this institution is not just a financial shortfall, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and birth control and maternal healthcare. A multitude of agencies say females will bear the brunt by shrinking assistance, especially in war zones. As the year ends, data shows how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with millions more to come. Another pair of leading funders announce their own austerity measures. A leader of an international advocacy group says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a move to appease a political ally.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In March, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a biannual gathering held alongside the annual UN Women gathering. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in buoyant mood as they celebrate shifts in US policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the women’s summit with a stark warning that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is returning, after a report shows that opponents of gender equality are actively undermining historic agreements on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa centered on the traditional family and national sovereignty sparks alarm among human rights defenders. In May, a national leader and spouse open a major forum to combat what they label external influences undermining local norms. A soon after, another regional summit on family values is held. Both events are graced by leading American and European conservative activists, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker calls on African NGOs to push back against “international liberal agenda” of international organizations. In the following month, a prominent church hosts a family strengthening conference in West Africa, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Campaigners note that the scale of their presence has expanded considerably.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in midsummer plans to incinerate millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a storage facility in Belgium. A leading family planning organization states that their elimination will deprive millions of women and girls from family planning options, 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 “a calculated move to control fertility”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “callous and reckless”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains in deadlock as local authorities refuse to permit the destruction of viable medicines.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reviving the global gag rule, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the ban was reimposed in January. The administration also reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. 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. Additional information regarding the expansion of the rule are expected in early 2026. A expert in child welfare says widening the scope will have “devastating consequences”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being discussed with African nations will become contingent upon adopting the broadened restrictions.
