Five Critical Crucial Incidents in the Rollback of the Freedoms of Women and Girls in This Past Year.

Twelve months prior, organisations advocating for women's rights were preparing for a return of Donald Trump to office. The ensuing chaos was largely unforeseen. The flood and velocity of administrative decrees coming out of the White House were viewed as a premeditated approach to induce a state of shock. To a large extent, it succeeded – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as groups rushed to address the shortfall left by a sudden aid suspension. But this merely marked the opening act.

The Trump administration has been the central catalyst, bolstered by intense advocacy work by religious fundamentalist networks capitalizing on the climate to strengthen global ties with ideological partners.

The anti-rights movement refers to a global network of political leaders, religious institutions, civil society groups as well as affluent financiers and clans that work to dismantle progress across a wide spectrum of issues. This encompasses abortion, LGBTQ rights, trans rights, non-traditional family structures and comprehensive sexuality education.

They pursue this agenda via pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to foster equity, propagating misinformation, and bankrolling sympathetic charities.

We analyze five episodes that influenced the safety, dignity and lives of the female population.

The Dismantling of USAID

In March, six weeks after a major US aid agency is frozen, causing widespread distress, a senior US official reveals that nearly all of the agency’s programmes will be eliminated. US diplomats, past leaders and relief and public health authorities decry the decision, cautioning that lives will be lost. Activists say that the closure of the organization is greater than a budgetary issue, it is a vicious offensive against basic liberties and birth control and maternal healthcare. A multitude of agencies say the impact on girls and women will be severe by reduced funding, especially in war zones. As the year ends, data shows how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from disease, starvation, lack of access to maternal care and gender-based violence, with many more millions at risk. Another pair of leading funders initiate similar reductions. A director of a global justice organization says a choice to reduce international development funding is a move to appease a political ally.

Conservative Religious Groups Lobby at UN Women Meeting

In the same month, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an upmarket New York hotel 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 oppose what they term a UN overreach. They are in high spirits as they applaud shifts in US policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the global conference with a grave caution that “the poison of patriarchy” is back, after a report shows that groups opposing progressive rights are deliberately weakening established norms on key women’s rights issues around the world.

Summits Promoting Conservative Norms

Over the warmer months, a cluster of meetings in Africa focused on the conservative family structures and national independence sparks alarm among human rights defenders. In early May, a head of state and partner open a major forum to resist what they label external influences undermining local norms. A few days later, another regional summit on conservative ethics is held. Both events are participated in by leading American and European conservative activists, including presidents of prominent organizations. One speaker calls on African NGOs to push back against “international liberal agenda” 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 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 health facilities across Africa report they are facing shortages of birth control, including emergency kits for survivors of sexual violence, the US announces in July plans to destroy millions of dollars worth of contraceptives held in a European depot. A major reproductive health federation states that their elimination will deprive countless females from access to birth control, and lead to a public health crisis of unwanted pregnancies. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about forcing a conservative worldview globally” and “a calculated move to control fertility”. A renowned doctors' group calls it “heartless and dangerous”. Aid groups propose purchasing the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains at a standstill as host nation officials refuse to permit the destruction of viable medicines.

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 typical of certain US administrations. It was widely expected when the policy was restored in January. The administration also signed onto a conservative consensus document. But in the autumn, the US announces it intends to expand the global gag rule to include national governments and international bodies in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. More details on the policy's widened application 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 fresh American assistance deals being discussed with African nations will become dependent on agreeing to the new, wider policy.