Five Pivotal Events in the Challenge to the Rights of Women and Girls in the Past Year.
Twelve months prior, women’s rights organisations were bracing themselves for a Trump presidency sequel. Few were prepared for. The volume and speed of presidential directives emanating from the White House were seen as a deliberate tactic to paralyze through overload. The tactic proved effective – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as networks struggled to compensate for the loss left by a sudden aid suspension. But the situation was about to worsen.
The Washington leadership has been the main instigator, aided by fervent lobbying efforts by deeply conservative factions seizing the opportunity to build worldwide connections with sympathetic regimes.
The movement against gender equality signifies a transnational grouping of policymakers, doctrinal establishments, and activist outfits as well as affluent financiers and clans that strive to weaken progress across a wide spectrum of issues. This covers reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They achieve this through pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to push for parity, disseminating propaganda, and supporting ideologically-matched groups.
We analyze five junctures that affected the protection, honor, and existence of the female population.
The Demise of a Major Aid Agency
In early spring, six weeks after a major US aid agency is frozen, causing widespread distress, a top American diplomat announces that the lion's share of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. US diplomats, past leaders and aid and medical specialists decry the decision, predicting that lives will be lost. Rights defenders say that the closure of the organization is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and family planning and reproductive care. Many organisations say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by reduced funding, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, evidence indicates how hundreds of thousands of people have already died from illness, famine, inadequate obstetric services, and violence against women, with millions more to come. Another pair of leading funders follow with their own cuts. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In March, several Christian-right organisations meet in an upmarket New York hotel for a strategic summit held alongside 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 celebrate changes in American foreign policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general opens the women’s summit with a stark warning that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is back, after a study indicates that groups opposing progressive rights are deliberately weakening longstanding consensus on key women’s rights issues around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the summer, a cluster of meetings in Africa focused on the conservative family structures and national independence triggers anxiety among rights advocates. In early May, a national leader and spouse open a major forum to combat what they label external influences undermining local norms. A few days later, another regional summit on family values is held. Both events are attended by leading American and European conservative activists, including heads of influential networks. One speaker urges African NGOs to stand up to “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of global institutions. In the following month, a major religious institution hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in West Africa, an event that health activists say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Campaigners note that the level of external participation 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 millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a storage facility in Belgium. A major reproductive health federation states that their destruction will deny countless females from contraceptive supplies, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an politically-motivated move “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “callous and reckless”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains in deadlock as host nation officials refuse to permit usable products to be destroyed.
Broader Restrictions on Aid
Reviving the global gag rule, which halts US aid to groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the ban was reimposed in the first month of the year. The administration also reaffirmed membership in a pro-life declaration. But in October, the US announces it intends to broaden the scope of the policy to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. More details on the broader enforcement are expected in early 2026. A expert in child welfare 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 broadened restrictions.
