Five Defining Crucial Incidents in the Assault on the Rights of Women and Girls in This Past Year.
In the previous year, women’s rights organisations were steeling themselves against a return of Donald Trump to office. Few were prepared for. The flood and velocity of presidential directives issued from the White House were viewed as a calculated strategy to paralyze through overload. In many ways it worked – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as agencies hastened to plug the hole left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But the situation was about to worsen.
The American government has been the key driver, supported by intense advocacy work by ultra-conservative groups using the moment to build worldwide connections with ideological partners.
This opposition to progressive rights denotes an international coalition of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that aim to roll back forward movement on multiple topics. Areas targeted involve 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 look at five episodes that affected the security, respect, and well-being of women and girls.
USAID Dismantled
In early spring, shortly after a major US aid agency is its funds are blocked, causing global disruption, a top American diplomat states that a vast majority of the body's projects will be terminated. American foreign service officers, ex-presidents and humanitarian and health experts denounce the action, predicting that fatalities will ensue. Human rights advocates say that the demise of the agency is greater than a budgetary issue, 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 waning support, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, data shows how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with millions more to come. Additional key contributing countries follow with their own cuts. 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.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In the same month, several conservative religious groups meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a two-day conference held alongside the international conference on women's rights. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in buoyant mood as they welcome changes in American foreign policy on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the women’s summit with a stark warning that “the venom of male dominance” is returning, after a analysis demonstrates that anti-rights actors are deliberately weakening established norms on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the summer, a series of conferences in Africa centered on the conventional household and state autonomy sparks alarm among rights advocates. In the start of May, a president and first lady open a significant conference to combat what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A shortly thereafter, another regional summit on traditional morals is held. Both events are graced by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to stand up to “radical global social engineering” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a prominent church hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in an African nation, an event that health activists say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Advocates remark that the level of external participation has grown significantly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As health facilities across Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in midsummer plans to dispose of 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 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 “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “callous and reckless”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains unresolved as the regional government are blocking the destruction of viable medicines.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which halts US aid to groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It was anticipated when the rule was reinstated in January. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in October, the US announces it intends to broaden the scope of the policy to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Additional information regarding the policy's widened application are expected in early 2026. A leader in global maternal health says broadening the policy will have “devastating consequences”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that new US aid packages being negotiated with countries in Africa will become contingent upon adopting the broadened restrictions.
