Five Critical Pivotal Events in the Assault on the Rights of Women and Girls in the Past Year.
Twelve months prior, organisations advocating for women's rights were preparing for a second Trump term. Scarcely anyone expected. The flood and velocity of White House mandates coming out of the White House were viewed as a intentional maneuver to paralyze through overload. This strategy had its intended impact – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as networks struggled to compensate for the loss left by a abrupt cessation of financial support. But the situation was about to worsen.
The US administration has been the main instigator, supported by intense advocacy work by far-right organisations using the moment to solidify transnational relationships with sympathetic regimes.
This opposition to progressive rights describes a worldwide alliance of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as ultra-rich backers and donors that work to dismantle progress across a wide spectrum of issues. Areas targeted involve access to termination, gay and trans protections, alternative households, and factual sexual instruction.
They accomplish their goals by lobbying governments, supporting court cases, discrediting international efforts to push for parity, disseminating propaganda, and supporting ideologically-matched groups.
We look at five episodes that influenced the safety, dignity and lives of women and girls.
USAID Dismantled
In March, shortly after a key American development organization is suspended, causing turmoil around the world, a top American diplomat announces that a vast majority of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. American foreign service officers, past leaders and humanitarian and health experts decry the decision, predicting that people will die as a result. Rights defenders say that the demise of the agency is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a savage attack on human rights and family planning and reproductive care. Many organisations say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by diminishing aid, especially in war zones. As the year ends, data shows how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with many more millions at risk. Two other major donor nations announce their own austerity measures. A director of a global justice organization says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is a move to appease a political ally.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In March, several Christian-right organisations meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a two-day conference held concurrently with the international conference on women's rights. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in high spirits as they celebrate shifts in US policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the women’s summit with a grave caution that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is returning, after a report shows that anti-rights actors are deliberately weakening historic agreements on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the warmer months, a sequence of gatherings in Africa focused on the traditional family and national sovereignty raises concerns among rights advocates. In early May, a national leader and spouse open a significant conference to push back on what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A soon after, another Pan-African conference on family values is held. Both events are attended by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including heads of influential networks. One speaker urges African NGOs to push back against “radical global social engineering” of global institutions. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in West Africa, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Campaigners note that the extent of foreign involvement has increased markedly.
US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives
As health facilities across Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in July plans to incinerate a vast stockpile of birth control held in a European depot. A global sexual health network states that their elimination will deprive countless females from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” 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 fulfill their original purpose, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains at a standstill as local authorities refuse to permit perfectly good supplies to be incinerated.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the rule was reinstated in the first month of the year. The administration also reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. 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 “unimaginable effects”. Reproductive justice campaigners fear that fresh American assistance deals being arranged with states on the continent will become conditional on accepting the new, wider policy.
