A Quintet of Significant Developments in the Assault on the Rights of Females in the Past Year.

In the previous year, organisations advocating for women's rights were bracing themselves for a second Trump term. Scarcely anyone expected. The flood and velocity of executive orders emanating from the White House were seen as a premeditated approach to cause confusion and fear. The tactic proved effective – there was disarray, outrage, and weariness as groups rushed to plug the hole left by a sudden aid suspension. But the situation was about to worsen.

The Washington leadership has been the primary force, bolstered by relentless activism by ultra-conservative groups seizing the opportunity to forge international alliances with like-minded governments.

This opposition to progressive rights refers to a global network of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as affluent financiers and clans that aim to roll back advances on numerous fronts. These include abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.

They do this by pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.

We analyze five junctures that affected the welfare, autonomy, and survival of females globally.

USAID Dismantled

In the month of March, six weeks after a key American development organization is halted, causing global disruption, a leading figure in the administration announces that over eighty percent of the body's projects will be terminated. Career diplomats, past leaders and humanitarian and health experts decry the decision, cautioning that lives will be lost. Rights defenders say that the dismantling of this institution is not just a financial shortfall, it is a brutal assault on fundamental freedoms and access to contraception and reproductive health services. Many organisations say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by reduced funding, especially in regions of instability. As the year ends, reports confirm 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. Another pair of leading funders follow with their own cuts. A head of a worldwide campaign network says a choice to reduce international development funding is a move to appease a political ally.

Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit

In March, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an high-end hotel in NYC for a strategic summit held in parallel 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 applaud new Washington directives on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the women’s summit with a stark warning that “the venom of male dominance” is back, after a study indicates that groups opposing progressive rights are deliberately weakening longstanding consensus on fundamental freedoms for women around the world.

Summits Promoting Conservative Norms

Over the warmer months, a series of conferences in Africa themed around the conservative family structures and national independence triggers anxiety among rights advocates. In the start of May, a president and first lady open a major forum to resist what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A few days later, another regional summit on traditional morals is held. Both events are attended by leading US and European anti-rights figures, including leaders of well-known groups. One speaker exhorts African NGOs to resist “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of global institutions. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a event focused on reinforcing families in an African nation, 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 expanded considerably.

US Threat to Destroy Contraceptives

As clinics in sub-Saharan Africa report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including prophylaxis for assault victims, the US announces in midsummer plans to dispose of a significant cache of reproductive health commodities held in a warehouse in Europe. A leading family planning organization states that their incineration will prevent a huge female population from contraceptive supplies, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an ideological decision “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A international emergency medical charity calls it “cruel and irresponsible”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can be distributed to those in need, but the US declines every proposal. The situation remains unresolved as local authorities will not allow the destruction of viable medicines.

‘Global Gag Rule’ Expanded

Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which cuts American funding for 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 January. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in October, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include governments and multilateral organisations in addition to NGOs, and to include DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) projects. More details on the policy's widened application are likely forthcoming. A leader in global maternal health says extending the reach will have “devastating consequences”. Pro-choice activists fear that new US aid packages being discussed with African nations will become contingent upon adopting the expanded global gag.