Five Critical Key Moments in the Assault on the Rights of Women and Girls in the Past Year.
Twelve months prior, women’s rights organisations were steeling themselves against a new Trump administration. Hardly anyone anticipated. The flood and velocity of executive orders originating in the White House were interpreted as a calculated strategy to overwhelm and create panic. In many ways it worked – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as agencies hastened to fill the gap left by a freeze on international development funds. But the situation was about to worsen.
The Trump administration has been the central catalyst, supported by fervent lobbying efforts by ultra-conservative groups seizing the opportunity to solidify transnational relationships with political allies.
Often termed the anti-gender movement refers to a global network of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as affluent financiers and clans that work to dismantle forward movement on multiple topics. This encompasses access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They do this by pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to advance equality, spreading disinformation, and funding non-profit organisations.
We look at five instances that affected the security, respect, and well-being of girls and women.
The Demise of a Major Aid Agency
In the month of March, a month and a half following a prominent humanitarian funder is frozen, causing global disruption, a leading figure in the administration reveals that nearly all of the institution's work will be scrapped. American foreign service officers, former presidents and humanitarian and health experts denounce the action, predicting that lives will be lost. Activists say that the demise of the agency is more than a funding crisis, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and family planning and reproductive care. Numerous groups say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by shrinking assistance, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, statistics reveal how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Additional key contributing countries initiate similar reductions. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a choice to reduce international development funding is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In March, several Christian-right organisations meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a biannual gathering held concurrently with the international conference on women's rights. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in high spirits as they celebrate new Washington directives on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the gender equality forum with a stark warning that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is resurgent, after a report shows that groups opposing progressive rights are actively undermining longstanding consensus on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa centered on the traditional family and national sovereignty triggers anxiety among human rights defenders. In early May, a national leader and spouse open a major forum to push back on what they label external influences undermining local norms. A few days later, another regional summit on family values is held. Both events are graced by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to stand up to “international liberal agenda” of international organizations. In the following month, a major religious institution hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in West Africa, an event that health activists say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Activists observe that the extent of foreign involvement has increased markedly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in midsummer plans to incinerate millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a warehouse in Europe. A leading family planning organization states that their destruction will deny countless females 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 deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains in deadlock as host nation officials are blocking the destruction of viable medicines.
‘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 typical of certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the policy was restored in January. 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 encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. 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 “catastrophic impacts”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being arranged with states on the continent will become contingent upon adopting the expanded global gag.
