Five Major Significant Developments in the Rollback of the Freedoms of Women and Girls in This Past Year.
In the previous year, feminist advocacy groups were steeling themselves against a new Trump administration. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The torrent and swiftness of administrative decrees issued from the White House were interpreted as a intentional maneuver to paralyze through overload. In many ways it worked – there was bewilderment, fury, and fatigue as groups rushed to plug the hole left by a freeze on international development funds. But this was only the precursor.
The Trump administration has been the primary force, supported by intense advocacy work by deeply conservative factions capitalizing on the climate to strengthen global ties with sympathetic regimes.
Often termed the anti-gender movement describes a worldwide alliance of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as affluent financiers and clans that seek to undermine advances on numerous fronts. Areas targeted involve reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They pursue this agenda via advocating to officials, financing legal challenges, sabotaging multilateral work to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We analyze five moments that shaped the protection, honor, and existence of the female population.
USAID Dismantled
In the month of March, six weeks after a key American development organization is halted, causing international chaos, a senior US official confirms that a vast majority of the organization's initiatives will be axed. American foreign service officers, ex-presidents and aid and medical specialists condemn the news, stating that lives will be lost. Rights defenders say that the demise of the agency is more than a funding crisis, 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 reduced funding, especially in war zones. As the year ends, statistics reveal how a significant mortality toll has been exacted from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with a far greater catastrophe looming. Two other major donor nations initiate similar reductions. A director of a global justice organization says a decision to slash billions in overseas assistance is an attempt to placate a powerful partner.
Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting
In the same month, several conservative religious groups meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a two-day conference held alongside the annual UN Women gathering. It is an opportunity to share tactics on how to defeat the UN’s “radical agenda”. They are in high spirits as they celebrate shifts in US policy on social issues and termination of pregnancy. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations opens the gender equality forum with a somber alert that “the venom of male dominance” is returning, after a report shows that anti-rights actors are systematically eroding established norms on key women’s rights issues around the world.
African ‘Family Values’ Conferences
Over the warmer months, a series of conferences in Africa focused on the conservative family structures and national independence triggers anxiety among human rights defenders. In the start of May, a national leader and spouse open a large assembly to push back on what they label overseas agendas corrupting societal morals. A few days later, another continental gathering on conservative ethics is held. Both events are participated in by leading Western campaigners against gender ideology, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to push back against “radical global social engineering” of multilateral bodies. In the following month, a prominent church hosts a gathering about supporting traditional households in West Africa, an event that health activists say has become a forum for opposing queer and trans rights. Activists observe that the extent of foreign involvement has increased markedly.
Contraceptive Destruction Order
As health facilities across Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in midsummer plans to destroy a vast stockpile of birth control held in a warehouse in Europe. A major reproductive health federation states that their elimination will deprive a huge female population from access to birth control, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “callous and reckless”. Charities attempt to acquire the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains unresolved as local authorities are blocking usable products to be destroyed.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Reviving the global gag rule, which halts US aid to groups that provide, advocate for or advise on abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the rule was reinstated in the first month of the year. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. 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. More details on the policy's widened application are expected in early 2026. A expert in child welfare says broadening the policy will have “unimaginable effects”. Pro-choice activists fear that fresh American assistance deals being discussed with African nations will become dependent on agreeing to the expanded global gag.
