Five Major Crucial Incidents in the Erosion of the Rights of Females in the Year 2025.
A year ago, organisations advocating for women's rights were steeling themselves against a second Trump term. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The sheer number and rapid pace of presidential directives originating in the White House were interpreted as a deliberate tactic to induce a state of shock. This strategy had its intended impact – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as groups rushed to address the shortfall left by a sudden aid suspension. But this was only the precursor.
The American government has been the main instigator, complemented by intense advocacy work by religious fundamentalist networks capitalizing on the climate to forge international alliances with ideological partners.
The movement against gender equality refers to a global network of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that seek to undermine advances on numerous fronts. This covers pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They pursue this agenda via advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to push for parity, disseminating propaganda, and supporting ideologically-matched groups.
We review five moments that shaped the protection, honor, and existence of the female population.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In March, shortly after a major US aid agency is halted, causing global disruption, a top American diplomat confirms that nearly all of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. Career diplomats, ex-presidents and relief and public health authorities criticize the move, predicting that lives will be lost. Human rights advocates say that the dismantling of this institution is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a savage attack on human rights and access to contraception and reproductive health services. A multitude of agencies say females will bear the brunt by shrinking assistance, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, statistics reveal how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with millions more to come. Another pair of leading funders announce their own austerity measures. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a move to appease a political ally.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In the same month, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a biannual gathering held in parallel with the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in buoyant mood as they celebrate new Washington directives on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the global conference with a stark warning that “the poison of patriarchy” is back, after a analysis demonstrates that anti-rights actors are systematically eroding historic agreements on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the warmer months, a series of conferences in Africa centered on the conservative family structures and national independence sparks alarm among rights advocates. In May, a president and first lady open a major forum to combat what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A soon after, another Pan-African conference on conservative ethics is held. Both events are attended by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker urges African NGOs to resist “international liberal agenda” of global institutions. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in West Africa, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Advocates remark that the extent of foreign involvement has expanded considerably.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As health facilities across Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in midsummer plans to destroy a vast stockpile of birth control held in a storage facility in Belgium. A leading family planning organization states that their incineration will prevent a huge female population from access to birth control, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about imposing an anti-rights agenda on the entire world” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “callous and reckless”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains in deadlock as host nation officials will not allow perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
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 rule was reinstated in the first month of the year. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in October, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Further specifics about the policy's widened application are anticipated next year. A director of a major health partnership says broadening the policy will have “devastating consequences”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that new US aid packages being arranged with states on the continent will become conditional on accepting the new, wider policy.
