A Quintet of Significant Developments in the Challenge to the Rights of Women and Girls in This Past Year.
A year ago, women’s rights organisations were anticipating a Trump presidency sequel. Few were prepared for. The volume and speed of presidential directives coming out of the White House were interpreted as a intentional maneuver to paralyze through overload. The tactic proved effective – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as networks struggled to compensate for the loss left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But this merely marked the opening act.
The US administration has been the key driver, bolstered by relentless activism by religious fundamentalist networks seizing the opportunity to strengthen global ties with political allies.
This opposition to progressive rights signifies a transnational grouping of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as billionaire families and individuals that seek to undermine gains in a variety of areas. These include reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They accomplish their goals by advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We review five junctures that affected the welfare, autonomy, and survival of females globally.
The Demise of a Major Aid Agency
In early spring, shortly after a major US aid agency is suspended, causing global disruption, a leading figure in the administration states that the lion's share of the organization's initiatives will be axed. US diplomats, ex-presidents and aid and medical specialists decry the decision, predicting that lives will be lost. Rights defenders say that the dismantling of this institution is more than a funding crisis, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and family planning and reproductive care. Many organisations say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by diminishing aid, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, evidence indicates how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with many more millions at risk. Additional key contributing countries follow with their own cuts. A leader of an international advocacy group 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 March, several conservative religious groups meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a strategic summit held in parallel with the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in high spirits as they celebrate shifts in US policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the global conference with a somber alert that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is back, after a report shows that opponents of gender equality are deliberately weakening longstanding consensus on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the summer, 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 major forum to push back on what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A soon after, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are participated in by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including heads of influential networks. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to resist “international liberal agenda” of global institutions. In June, a major religious institution hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in West Africa, an event that health activists say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Activists observe that the scale of their presence has expanded considerably.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As health facilities across Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in midsummer plans to dispose of a vast stockpile of birth control held in a European depot. A major reproductive health federation states that their elimination will deprive countless females from family planning options, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “callous and reckless”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains in deadlock as host nation officials refuse to permit the destruction of viable medicines.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which cuts American funding for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the rule was reinstated in January. The administration also reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. 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. Additional information regarding the expansion of the rule are expected in early 2026. A director of a major health partnership says widening the scope will have “devastating consequences”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that fresh American assistance deals being negotiated with countries in Africa will become contingent upon adopting the new, wider policy.
