A Quintet of Pivotal Events in the Challenge to the Rights of Females in the Past Year.
Twelve months prior, organisations advocating for women's rights were preparing for a new Trump administration. Hardly anyone anticipated. The sheer number and rapid pace of administrative decrees coming out of the White House were interpreted as a intentional maneuver to induce a state of shock. The tactic proved effective – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as networks struggled to plug the hole left by a sudden aid suspension. But that was just the beginning.
The American government has been the primary force, bolstered by vigorous campaigning by religious fundamentalist networks exploiting the situation to solidify transnational relationships with ideological partners.
The movement against gender equality refers to a global network of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that aim to roll back advances on numerous fronts. These include pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They do this by advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We review five instances that impacted the welfare, autonomy, and survival of women and girls.
The Dismantling of USAID
In early spring, six weeks after a major US aid agency is frozen, causing global disruption, a top American diplomat states that the lion's share of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. Career diplomats, former presidents and aid and medical specialists decry the decision, stating that mortality will increase. Activists say that the closure of the organization is not just a financial shortfall, it is a savage attack on human rights and family planning and reproductive care. Many organisations say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by reduced funding, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, reports confirm how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with many more millions at risk. Additional key contributing countries initiate similar reductions. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a move to appease a political ally.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In the same month, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a two-day conference held in parallel with 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 LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the women’s summit with a stark warning that “the poison of patriarchy” is resurgent, after a study indicates that opponents of gender equality are actively undermining historic agreements on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the warmer months, a series of conferences in Africa themed around the traditional family and national sovereignty triggers anxiety among rights advocates. In early May, a national leader and spouse open a large assembly to resist what they label external influences undermining local norms. A soon after, another Pan-African conference on traditional morals is held. Both events are graced by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including heads of influential networks. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to resist “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of multilateral bodies. In June, a major religious institution hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in an African nation, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the level of external participation has increased markedly.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As health facilities across Africa report they are running out of contraceptives, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in July plans to dispose of a vast stockpile of birth control held in a warehouse in Europe. A global sexual health network states that their elimination will deprive countless females from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains unresolved as the regional government will not allow the destruction of viable medicines.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which cuts American funding for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the rule was reinstated 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 national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. More details on the expansion of the rule are expected in early 2026. A director of a major health partnership says broadening the policy will have “unimaginable effects”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being arranged with states on the continent will become contingent upon adopting the expanded global gag.
