A Quintet of Key Moments in the Assault on the Rights of Females in This Past Year.
This time last year, women’s rights organisations were steeling themselves against a new Trump administration. Scarcely anyone expected. The volume and speed of administrative decrees emanating from the White House were interpreted as a deliberate tactic to overwhelm and create panic. The tactic proved effective – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as agencies hastened to fill the gap left by a sudden aid suspension. But this was only the precursor.
The US administration has been the central catalyst, bolstered by relentless activism by far-right organisations exploiting the situation to forge international alliances with ideological partners.
The movement against gender equality denotes an international coalition of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that work to dismantle progress across a wide spectrum of issues. This encompasses access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They do this by lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We analyze five moments that impacted the security, respect, and well-being of women and girls.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In March, six weeks after a key American development organization is halted, causing global disruption, a top American diplomat states that the lion's share of the organization's initiatives will be axed. American foreign service officers, former presidents and humanitarian and health experts criticize the move, warning that lives will be lost. Human rights advocates say that the closure of the organization is not just a financial shortfall, it is a savage attack on human rights and birth control and maternal healthcare. Numerous groups say females will bear the brunt by waning support, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with many more millions at risk. 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 a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In March, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a biannual gathering held alongside the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in high spirits as they welcome new Washington directives on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the gender equality forum with a stark warning that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is back, after a analysis demonstrates that groups opposing progressive rights are systematically eroding longstanding consensus on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the summer, a series of conferences in Africa focused on the conventional household and state autonomy triggers anxiety among rights advocates. In the start of May, a president and first lady open a major forum to push back on what they label external influences undermining local norms. A soon after, another Pan-African conference on family values is held. Both events are graced by leading American and European conservative activists, including heads of influential networks. One speaker calls on African NGOs to push back against “international liberal agenda” of multilateral bodies. 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 a stage for criticizing gender equality. Advocates remark that the level of external participation has increased markedly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in July plans to dispose of a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a storage facility in Belgium. A global sexual health network states that their destruction will deny countless females from contraceptive supplies, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. 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 prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “callous and reckless”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains in deadlock as local authorities refuse to permit perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which halts US aid to groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the ban was reimposed in the first month of the year. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in October, 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 widening the scope will have “unimaginable effects”. Pro-choice activists fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being discussed with African nations will become conditional on accepting the expanded global gag.
