Five Landmark Occurrences in the Challenge to the Freedoms of Women and Girls in the Year 2025.

A year ago, feminist advocacy groups were preparing for a new Trump administration. Hardly anyone anticipated. The sheer number and rapid pace of presidential directives coming out of the White House were regarded as a premeditated approach to cause confusion and fear. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as agencies hastened to plug the hole left by a major funding freeze. But this was only the precursor.

The US administration has been the main instigator, aided by relentless activism by religious fundamentalist networks capitalizing on the climate to forge international alliances with political allies.

Often termed the anti-gender movement signifies a transnational grouping of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as billionaire families and individuals that work to dismantle advances on numerous fronts. This covers 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 moments that impacted the safety, dignity and lives of the female population.

The Dismantling of USAID

In the month of March, six weeks after a key American development organization is suspended, causing widespread distress, a leading figure in the administration announces that nearly all of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. Career diplomats, former presidents and humanitarian and health experts condemn the news, predicting that lives will be lost. Activists say that the closure of the organization is not just a financial shortfall, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms 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, reports confirm how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Two other major donor nations proceed with parallel slashes. A director of a global justice organization says a choice to reduce international development funding is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.

Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference

In March, several Christian-right organisations meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a strategic summit held in parallel with the annual UN Women gathering. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in optimistic frame of mind as they applaud changes in American foreign policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the women’s summit with a grave caution that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is back, after a study indicates that opponents of gender equality are actively undermining established norms on key women’s rights issues around the world.

African ‘Family Values’ Conferences

Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa centered on the conservative family structures and national independence triggers anxiety among equality campaigners. In early May, a head of state and partner open a large assembly to push back on what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A soon after, another regional summit on family values is held. Both events are graced by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker urges African NGOs to stand up to “international liberal agenda” of international organizations. In the following month, a major religious institution hosts a family strengthening conference in an African nation, an event that health activists say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Advocates remark that the scale of their presence has increased markedly.

Contraceptive Destruction Order

As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in July plans to dispose of millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a storage facility in Belgium. A leading family planning organization states that their elimination will deprive a huge female population 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 “heartless and dangerous”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains in deadlock as local authorities are blocking perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.

Broader Restrictions on Aid

Reviving the global gag rule, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the policy was restored in January. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in October, 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. More details on the expansion of the rule are anticipated next year. A leader in global maternal health says broadening the policy will have “catastrophic impacts”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that new US aid packages being arranged with states on the continent will become dependent on agreeing to the expanded global gag.