A Quintet of Crucial Incidents in the Rollback of the Rights of Women and Girls in This Past Year.
This time last year, organisations advocating for women's rights were bracing themselves for a return of Donald Trump to office. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The flood and velocity of White House mandates originating in the White House were viewed as a premeditated approach to cause confusion and fear. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as agencies hastened to compensate for the loss left by a major funding freeze. But this was only the precursor.
The Washington leadership has been the main instigator, complemented by relentless activism by religious fundamentalist networks using the moment to solidify transnational relationships with like-minded governments.
The anti-rights movement signifies a transnational grouping of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as billionaire families and individuals that strive to weaken advances on numerous fronts. Areas targeted involve abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.
They do this by advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We analyze five moments that impacted the protection, honor, and existence of women and girls.
USAID Dismantled
In early spring, six weeks after a prominent humanitarian funder is suspended, causing global disruption, a leading figure in the administration announces that a vast majority of the organization's initiatives will be axed. US diplomats, ex-presidents and humanitarian and health experts decry the decision, cautioning that fatalities will ensue. Rights defenders say that the demise of the agency is not just a financial shortfall, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and birth control and maternal healthcare. Numerous groups say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by diminishing aid, especially in war zones. As the year ends, evidence indicates how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with millions more to come. Two other major donor nations announce their own austerity measures. A director of a global justice organization says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In the same month, several conservative religious groups meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a two-day conference held alongside the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in high spirits as they applaud changes in American foreign policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the gender equality forum with a grave caution that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is back, 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 warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa focused on the traditional family and national sovereignty sparks alarm among equality campaigners. In the start of May, a national leader and spouse open a major forum to push back on what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A shortly thereafter, another regional summit on family values is held. Both events are attended by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker urges African NGOs to resist “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of multilateral bodies. In June, a global faith group hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in West Africa, an event that health activists say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the level of external participation has expanded considerably.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are running out of contraceptives, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in July plans to destroy a vast stockpile of birth control held in a warehouse in Europe. A major reproductive health federation states that their elimination will deprive 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 ideological decision “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “heartless and dangerous”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains at a standstill as local authorities refuse to permit the destruction of viable medicines.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Reviving the global gag rule, which cuts American funding for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the rule was reinstated in January. The administration also reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Further specifics about the broader enforcement are expected in early 2026. A leader in global maternal health says widening the scope will have “catastrophic impacts”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that new US aid packages being negotiated with countries in Africa will become dependent on agreeing to the new, wider policy.
