Five Pivotal Events in the Assault on the Rights of Females in the Past Year.
In the previous year, feminist advocacy groups were anticipating a new Trump administration. Hardly anyone anticipated. The flood and velocity of administrative decrees issued from the White House were viewed as a calculated strategy to induce a state of shock. The tactic proved effective – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as networks struggled to fill the gap left by a major funding freeze. But that was just the beginning.
The Washington leadership has been the main instigator, bolstered by relentless activism by deeply conservative factions using the moment to solidify transnational relationships with political allies.
The movement against gender equality signifies a transnational grouping of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that strive to weaken gains in a variety of areas. Areas targeted involve pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They pursue this agenda via pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We look at five episodes that shaped the safety, dignity and lives of the female population.
The Dismantling of USAID
In early spring, shortly after a prominent humanitarian funder is halted, causing turmoil around the world, a leading figure in the administration reveals that the lion's share of the organization's initiatives will be axed. Career diplomats, past leaders and humanitarian and health experts condemn the news, stating that lives will be lost. Rights defenders say that the demise of the agency is not just a financial shortfall, it is a savage attack on human rights and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Many organisations say females will bear the brunt by shrinking assistance, especially in war zones. As the year ends, evidence indicates how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with millions more to come. Another pair of leading funders follow with their own cuts. A director of a global justice organization says a choice to reduce international development funding is a move to appease a political ally.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In the same month, several conservative religious groups meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a strategic summit held alongside the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in buoyant mood as they applaud shifts in US policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the women’s summit with a somber alert that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is returning, after a report shows that anti-rights actors are systematically eroding established norms on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Summits Promoting Conservative Norms
Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa themed around the conventional household and state autonomy sparks alarm among human rights defenders. In the start of May, a national leader and spouse open a significant conference to combat what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A few days later, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are graced by leading American and European conservative activists, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker calls on African NGOs to push back against “international liberal agenda” of global institutions. In June, a major religious institution hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in an African nation, an event that health activists say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the level of external participation has expanded considerably.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are running out of contraceptives, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in midsummer plans to incinerate a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a storage facility in Belgium. A global sexual health network states that their elimination will deprive millions of women and girls from access to birth control, 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 calculated move to control fertility”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains unresolved as local authorities will not allow the destruction of viable medicines.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which halts US aid to groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It came as no surprise 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 expand the global gag rule to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to encompass equity and inclusion initiatives. More details on the policy's widened application are expected in early 2026. A director of a major health partnership says broadening the policy will have “unimaginable effects”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that new US aid packages being arranged with states on the continent will become dependent on agreeing to the expanded global gag.
