Five Defining Significant Developments in the Rollback of the Rights of Women and Girls in This Past Year.
This time last year, women’s rights organisations were steeling themselves against a second Trump term. Scarcely anyone expected. The volume and speed of presidential directives coming out of the White House were viewed as a calculated strategy to paralyze through overload. In many ways it worked – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as organisations scrambled to compensate for the loss left by a freeze on international development funds. But this merely marked the opening act.
The American government has been the key driver, supported by relentless activism by deeply conservative factions seizing the opportunity to solidify transnational relationships with sympathetic regimes.
This opposition to progressive rights denotes an international coalition of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as wealthy philanthropists and dynasties that seek to undermine advances on numerous fronts. This encompasses pro-choice policies, equality for sexual minorities, gender identity recognition, and inclusive relationship teaching.
They accomplish their goals by pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to push for parity, disseminating propaganda, and supporting ideologically-matched groups.
We analyze five junctures that influenced the safety, dignity and lives of the female population.
USAID Effectively Dismantled
In March, shortly after a key American development organization is its funds are blocked, causing international chaos, a senior US official confirms that a vast majority of the organization's initiatives will be axed. US diplomats, past leaders and relief and public health authorities condemn the news, cautioning that people will die as a result. Activists say that the demise of the agency is more than a funding crisis, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and birth control and maternal healthcare. Many organisations say females will bear the brunt by reduced funding, especially in war zones. As the year ends, reports confirm how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Additional key contributing countries announce their own austerity measures. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a choice to reduce international development funding is a move to appease a political ally.
Faith-Based Activists Mobilize at UN Conference
In March, several Christian-right organisations meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a two-day conference held concurrently with the UN's flagship gender equality meeting. It is an chance to exchange strategies on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in buoyant mood as they celebrate shifts in US policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the women’s summit with a stark warning that “the poison of patriarchy” is back, after a report shows that opponents of gender equality are deliberately weakening longstanding consensus on key women’s rights issues around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the summer, a sequence of gatherings in Africa centered on the conventional household and state autonomy sparks alarm among rights advocates. In early May, a president and first lady open a large assembly to push back on what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A soon after, another continental gathering on family values is held. Both events are attended by leading American and European conservative activists, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker calls on African NGOs to stand up to “international liberal agenda” of multilateral bodies. In June, a prominent church hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in an African nation, an event that pro-choice campaigners say has become an anti-LGBTQ, anti-gender platform. Campaigners note that the scale of their presence has expanded considerably.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are running out of contraceptives, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in midsummer plans to incinerate a vast stockpile of birth control held in a storage facility in Belgium. A global sexual health network states that their elimination will deprive a huge female population from access to birth control, and lead to a surge in unplanned pregnancies and dangerous terminations. 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”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can fulfill their original purpose, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains at a standstill as host nation officials are blocking the destruction of viable medicines.
‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which prohibits Washington's support for groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is typical of certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the ban was reimposed in January. 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 national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. Additional information regarding the broader enforcement are expected in early 2026. A leader in global maternal health says broadening the policy will have “catastrophic impacts”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that new US aid packages being discussed with African nations will become dependent on agreeing to the broadened restrictions.
