A Quintet of Crucial Incidents in the Challenge to the Rights of Females in the Year 2025.

A year ago, groups dedicated to gender equality were bracing themselves for a Trump presidency sequel. Hardly anyone anticipated. The flood and velocity of executive orders coming out of the White House were viewed as a calculated strategy to induce a state of shock. In many ways it worked – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as organisations scrambled to fill the gap left by a freeze on international development funds. But this was only the precursor.

The American government has been the central catalyst, supported by intense advocacy work by far-right organisations using the moment to strengthen global ties with political allies.

The anti-rights movement signifies a transnational grouping of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as affluent financiers and clans that strive to weaken forward movement on multiple topics. 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 foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.

We examine five episodes that affected the protection, honor, and existence of women and girls.

The Dismantling of USAID

In the month of March, six weeks after a prominent humanitarian funder is frozen, causing widespread distress, a top American diplomat states that nearly all of the organization's initiatives will be axed. US diplomats, ex-presidents and aid and medical specialists condemn the news, warning that people will die as a result. Human rights advocates say that the closure of the organization is more than a funding crisis, it is a savage attack on human rights and family planning and reproductive care. Many organisations say the impact on girls and women will be severe by waning support, especially in war zones. As the year ends, evidence indicates how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Another pair of leading funders follow with their own cuts. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.

Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting

In March, several conservative religious groups meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a two-day conference held concurrently with the international conference on women's rights. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they celebrate shifts in US policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the global conference with a somber alert that “the venom of male dominance” is back, after a report shows that anti-rights actors are deliberately weakening longstanding consensus on key women’s rights issues around the world.

African ‘Family Values’ Conferences

Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa centered on the conservative family structures and national independence raises concerns among rights advocates. In May, a national leader and spouse open a large assembly to push back on what they label external influences undermining local norms. A few days later, another continental gathering on conservative ethics is held. Both events are graced by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker calls on African NGOs to stand up to “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of global institutions. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a family strengthening conference in the region, an event that health activists say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the scale of their presence has expanded considerably.

American Plan to Burn Birth Control

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 destroy millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a European depot. A leading family planning organization states that their elimination will deprive millions of women and girls from access to birth control, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains in deadlock as the regional government are blocking the destruction of viable medicines.

Broader Restrictions on Aid

Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, 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 the first month of the year. The administration also reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in October, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. More details on the broader enforcement are likely forthcoming. A director of a major health partnership says broadening the policy will have “devastating consequences”. Pro-choice activists fear that new US aid packages being discussed with African nations will become conditional on accepting the new, wider policy.