A Quintet of Landmark Occurrences in the Assault on the Rights of Females in This Past Year.
In the previous year, organisations advocating for women's rights were preparing for a Trump presidency sequel. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The volume and speed of executive orders originating in the White House were interpreted as a deliberate tactic to cause confusion and fear. The tactic proved effective – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as agencies hastened to fill the gap left by a sudden aid suspension. But that was just the beginning.
The Washington leadership has been the central catalyst, supported by relentless activism by deeply conservative factions seizing the opportunity to forge international alliances with sympathetic regimes.
This opposition to progressive rights refers to a global network of elected officials, faith-based bodies, non-governmental organisations as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that seek to undermine forward movement on multiple topics. Areas targeted involve reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They achieve this through advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.
We examine five episodes that shaped the protection, honor, and existence of women and girls.
The Dismantling of USAID
In early spring, a month and a half following a major US aid agency is halted, causing turmoil around the world, a top American diplomat announces that the lion's share of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. Career diplomats, past leaders and humanitarian and health experts criticize the move, cautioning that lives will be lost. Human rights advocates say that the dismantling of this institution is not just a financial shortfall, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and family planning and reproductive care. Many organisations say the impact on girls and women will be severe by shrinking assistance, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, statistics reveal how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Another pair of leading funders announce their own austerity measures. A director of a global justice organization says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In the same month, several conservative religious groups meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a biannual gathering held in parallel with the international conference on women's rights. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in buoyant mood as they welcome new Washington directives on LGBTQ issues, inclusion, and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the gender equality forum with a stark warning that “the poison of patriarchy” is back, after a study indicates that groups opposing progressive rights are deliberately weakening historic agreements on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the summer, a series of conferences in Africa centered on the conservative family structures and national independence triggers anxiety among equality campaigners. In the start of May, a head of state and partner open a large assembly to push back on what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A soon after, another regional summit on family values is held. Both events are participated in by leading American and European conservative activists, including heads of influential networks. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to stand up to “radical global social engineering” of global institutions. In June, a global faith group hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in West Africa, an event that reproductive rights advocates say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Advocates remark that the level of external participation has expanded considerably.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in midsummer plans to destroy millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a storage facility in Belgium. A major reproductive health federation states that their incineration will prevent countless females from contraceptive supplies, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “an intentional act of reproductive coercion”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “heartless and dangerous”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US rejects each bid. The situation remains unresolved as host nation officials are blocking usable products to be destroyed.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is commonplace under certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the ban was reimposed in January. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in the autumn, 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. Additional information regarding the expansion of the rule are expected in early 2026. A leader in global maternal health says widening the scope will have “devastating consequences”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that upcoming Washington funding agreements being arranged with states on the continent will become dependent on agreeing to the broadened restrictions.
