Five Defining Significant Developments in the Challenge to the Freedoms of Women and Girls in This Past Year.
Twelve months prior, feminist advocacy groups were preparing for a new Trump administration. Scarcely anyone expected. The flood and velocity of executive orders originating in the White House were regarded as a calculated strategy to overwhelm and create panic. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as networks struggled to address the shortfall left by a major funding freeze. But this was only the precursor.
The American government has been the key driver, supported by relentless activism by religious fundamentalist networks seizing the opportunity 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 billionaire families and individuals that work to dismantle gains in a variety of areas. Areas targeted involve reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They achieve this through pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We review five junctures that shaped the security, respect, and well-being of girls and women.
The Dismantling of USAID
In early spring, a month and a half following a key American development organization is frozen, causing widespread distress, a senior US official announces that nearly all of the body's projects will be terminated. American foreign service officers, ex-presidents and aid and medical specialists decry the decision, warning that fatalities will ensue. Rights defenders say that the closure of the organization is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Many organisations say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by shrinking assistance, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with millions more to come. Another pair of leading funders follow with their own cuts. A director of a global justice organization says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is a move to appease a political ally.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In the same month, several conservative religious groups meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a two-day conference held in parallel with the annual UN Women gathering. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they welcome changes in American foreign policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the women’s summit with a stark warning that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is back, after a study indicates that opponents of gender equality are systematically eroding historic agreements on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa focused on the conservative family structures and national independence triggers anxiety among equality campaigners. In the start of May, a president and first lady open a significant conference to resist what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A few days later, another Pan-African conference on family values is held. Both events are graced by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including heads of influential networks. One speaker calls on African NGOs to resist “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of global institutions. In June, a major religious institution hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in West Africa, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the extent of foreign involvement has increased markedly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As health facilities across Africa report they are running out of contraceptives, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in midsummer plans to incinerate millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a warehouse in Europe. A global sexual health network states that their incineration will prevent 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 dogmatic choice “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains in deadlock as the regional government refuse to permit usable products to be destroyed.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which halts US aid to groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the rule was reinstated in January. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. More details on the broader enforcement are expected in early 2026. A director of a major health partnership says extending the reach will have “unimaginable effects”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being negotiated with countries in Africa will become contingent upon adopting the new, wider policy.
